Dr Kieran Connell, lecturer from the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics at Queen’s, will spend six months as a Visiting Scholar at New York University where he will explore how these US scholars sought to apply their expertise in US race relations to a British context, and played a key role in shaping understandings of the multicultural society in which we live today.

Commenting on receiving the award, Dr Connell said: “I am thrilled to be the recipient of such a prestigious award. I am looking forward to contributing to our understanding of how intellectual exchanges across the Atlantic helped shape understandings of what today we would call the making of multicultural Britain.”

During the six month scholarship, Dr Connell will access the archives of New York Public Library, the Rockefeller Archive Center (New York), Smithsonian Institute (Maryland), and the Howard University Papers (Washington, D.C.) as part of his research. He will also work with the Professor Guy Ortolano at New York University and the New York-Cambridge Training Collaboration.

As part of his research he will study the work of St Clair Drake, an African-American sociologist and activities; Kenneth B. Clark, an African-American psychologist renowned for his role in the 1954 Brown vs. Board Education case; and the Ford Foundation.

“Being in New York will give me the opportunity to examine archival material that has long been neglected by historians, and bring this to a much wider audience.  I’m also looking forward to acting as an ambassador for US-UK cultural relations, and to embracing life in the States more generally. I hope that by the end of my stay in the US I may even be able to understand baseball,” Dr Connell added.  

Penny Egan CBE, Executive Director, US-UK Fulbright Commission said: “This cohort of Fulbright grantees will have the opportunity to immerse themselves fully in another culture, work collaboratively and develop lasting transatlantic relationships. In so doing, they will build upon the work of the more than 23,000 alumni of the US-UK Fulbright Programme that have come before them, helping move us closer towards Senator Fulbright’s vision of a peaceful, more prosperous world.”

Considered one of the most prestigious scholarships in the world, the U.S.-UK Fulbright Commission was founded by diplomatic treaty in 1948, to foster intercultural understanding between the United States of America and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland through educational exchange.

Dr Kieran Connell will take up his scholarship in January 2020.

For more information, please visit the US-UK Fulbright Commission: http://www.fulbright.org.uk/

ENDS…

Dr Kieran Connell

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