June 11, 2002 Kluge Center Welcomes Arriving Scholars Starting in July and August, 2002

Press Contact: Craig D'Ooge (202) 707-9189
Public Contact: (202) 707-3302

The John W. Kluge Center is pleased to announce the arrival of the first group of residential scholars to occupy the Center's renovated location in the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress. Arriving during July and August of 2002 are five recipients of grants through the Library's Kluge Fellowship program, Rockefeller Humanities Fellowships in Islamic Studies program, and the Library of Congress International Studies Fellowship--Mellon Program. The Fellows include Susan Hirsch, Jennifer Keene, Helgard Mahrdt, Mina Marefat, and Pamela Swett. In addition, the Center will host several other distinguished visiting scholars over the summer, including Edward Ayers, Derrick de Kerckhove, and Jean Bethke Elshtain.

The following describes fields of interest and biographical background for this group of scholars:

Susan F. Hirsch, Rockefeller Humanities Fellow in Islamic Studies, will focus on "The Embassy Bombings Reframed: Constructing Identities, Legal Meanings, and Justice." Dr. Hirsch hopes to produce a volume of essays that will draw on her experiences as one who has confronted personal tragedy in the embassy bombing in Dar es Salaam and who has conducted considerable research in New York City after September 11, 2001. Dr. Hirsch received her Ph.D. from Duke University in 1990. In 1997-98, she was a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and presently, she is Chair of the Department of Anthropology at Wesleyan University. Professor Hirsch is the author of numerous articles on law and society in Islamic culture. Her book, Pronouncing and Persevering: Gender and the Discourses of Disputing in an African Islamic Court, was published in 1998.

Jennifer Keene, an LC International Studies-Mellon Program Fellow, will be working on a project entitled "La Force Noire: African American and West African Soldiers in the Great War," an attempt to compare the experiences of African-Americans to those of West African colonial troops in France during the First World War, in order to test the widely-held belief that France was a color-blind society. Dr. Keene, who has been on the faculty of the University of Redlands since the Fall 1996, previously taught at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, Université de Paris XII, and Carnegie-Mellon University. Dr. Keene's broader research interest focuses on the experience of soldiers during the First World War. Besides completing a manuscript on the political effects of conscripting a mass army for the United States during the War, she is also particularly interested in the experiences of African-American soldiers.

Helgard Mahrdt, recipient of a Kluge Fellowship, will be studying "Hannah Arendt's Political Thinking in the Mirror of Her Literary Portraits." A German scholar working in Norway, Dr. Mahrdt was trained in literature and political science at the universities in Göttingen and Bremen. She received her Ph.D. at the University of Tromsø and is on the faculty of the German department at the University of Oslo. Her studies have been funded in part by the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation, the Norwegian Research Council and the German Literature Archive.

Library of Congress Rockefeller Humanities Fellow in Islamic Studies, Mina Marefat, will be examining "Zaher va Baten: Complexity and Contradiction in Islamic Architecture: A Case Study of Teheran." Ms. Marefat is familiar to attendees of the Library's series of symposia on Islam and Globalization, having spoken at the Library in September 2000, at the Globalization and Identity in Muslim Societies conference. President of Design Research, Inc., an architecture and design firm in Washington, DC, Ms. Marefat was formerly the senior architectural historian at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History, where she initiated new research and public programs. She teaches and writes on modernism, culture, and architecture and is director of architectural education for the Aga Khan Trust for Culture.

Kluge Fellow Pamela Swett, Assistant Professor of History at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, will focus on "Selling Under the Swastika: The Refashioning of German Advertising After 1933." A 1992 graduate of Bryn Mawr College, she continued her studies at Brown University where she received her Ph.D. in 1999. While a graduate student, she was awarded research grants from the German Academic Exchange Service and the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation for work in Berlin, Germany. Her dissertation entitled "Neighborhood Mobilization and the Violence of Collapse: Berlin Political Culture, 1929-1933" received Brown University's Joukowsky Family Dissertation Award for a distinguished thesis in the Social Sciences.

Papamarkou Consultant Derrick de Kerckhove will be exploring the relationship between alphabets, books, and people of different cultures. De Kerckhove is Director of the McLuhan Program in Culture & Technology and Professor in the Department of French at the University of Toronto. He received his Ph.D. in French Language and Literature from the University of Toronto in 1975 and a Doctorat du 3e cycle in Sociology of Art from the University of Tours (France) in 1979. From 1972 to 1980, he worked with Marshall McLuhan as translator, assistant and co-author. In addition to his interest and research in technology and communication, de Kerckhove is promoting a new field of artistic endeavor, which brings together art, engineering and emerging communication technologies. Beginning in January 2003, Professor de Kerckhove will become the first occupant of the Harissios Papamarkou Chair in Education.

Papamarkou Consultant Edward L. Ayers is Dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Virginia and co-author, with Anne S. Rubin, of the CD- ROM, "The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War--The Eve of War" (2000). Dr. Ayers will be meeting with history teachers in North Carolina on creative ways to use the Library's American Memory Web site before coming to the Library for continuing discussions on the use of the internet in education. Professor Ayers, who received his B.A. from the University of Tennessee in 1974 and his Ph. D. from Yale in 1980, was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001. Among his many honors are the Frank L. and Harriet C. Owsley Award, given in 1993 by the Southern Historical Association for the best book in Southern history and the James Rawly prize, given in 1992 by the Organization of American Historians for best book on the history of race relations in the United States.

Jean Bethke Elshtain is a member of the Library's Scholars' Council, an advisory group that assists the Librarian in matters pertaining to the Kluge Center and the Kluge Prize. While in residence at the Kluge Center, she will explore "Early Modern Theories of State Sovereignty." Dr. Elshtain is the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at The University of Chicago. She is the author of many books, including The Jane Addams Reader (2001) and Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy (2001). She is the editor of The Family in Political Thought and the author of more than four hundred articles and essays in scholarly journals and journals of civic opinion. In 1996, she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. A recipient of seven honorary degrees, Dr. Elshtain is Co-Chair of the recently established Pew Forum on Religion and American Public Life.

About the Kluge Center

Through the John W. Kluge Center, the Library of Congress hosts qualified scholars conducting research in its unparalleled collections for a period of up to one year. Established in

2000 through a $60 million endowment from Mr. John W. Kluge, the Center is located in the Library's splendid Jefferson Building. The Kluge Center furnishes work and discussion space for the Kluge Chair holders, other established Chairs, distinguished visiting scholars, Kluge postdoctoral Fellows, and for postdoctoral Fellows supported by other private foundation gifts, as well as easy access to the Library's services and specialized staff.

For more information about The John W. Kluge Center contact the Office of Scholarly Programs, Library of Congress, 101 Independence Avenue, SE, Washington, DC 20540-4860; phone (202) 707-3302; fax (202) 707-3595; email: scholarly@loc.gov. Web: www.loc.gov/kluge.

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PR 02-083
2002-06-11
ISSN 0731-3527