Library Scholars Grant Recipients
Please join me in congratulating several Liberal Arts faculty members who were recently awarded Library Scholars Grants, administered by Purdue University Libraries, which support faculty access to unique collections of information found around the country and the world.
Marlo David, associate professor of English and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, proposed a research project to develop a literary and artistic biography of African-American filmmaker, playwright, and actor Bill Gunn (1934–1989), who wrote and/or directed six films, wrote 11 plays and one novel, and performed as an actor throughout the influential U.S. Black Arts Movement (1965–1975). There is no full-length critical manuscript dedicated to his life or his films, plays, and novel to date, and Marlo seeks to recover the lost works of Gunn and produce a detailed biography of his life. She will visit archives and collections in New York City and Los Angeles in order to locate materials related to Gunn’s work as a playwright and filmmaker, as well as papers of his many friends and associates.
Rebekah Klein-Pejšová, associate professor of history and Jewish Studies, will examine the mutual efforts of Hungarian, Slovak, and Czech Jews both abroad and remaining inside postwar Hungary and Czechoslovakia to remain in contact with each other. She’ll also study the implications of their efforts for Jewish/state relations in the consolidating new global order, and the relationship between rights protections and movement, using the Open Society Archives collections in Budapest, Hungary. The Open Society Archives was established in 1995 as part of the post-communist transition to document the postwar period of Soviet-style communism in central and eastern Europe and Eurasia, with special attention to human rights issues and movements.
Silvia Mitchell, assistant professor of history, will research the close and unprecedented diplomatic and military collaboration Queen Mariana of Austria established with King Charles II of England during her rule as regent (1665–1676). Silvia will travel to archives in Madrid, Toledo, and Valladolid, Spain, to examine the queen’s instructions and correspondence with the Spanish ambassadors in London as well as the Council of State’s deliberations over which Mariana presided.
Each faculty member will give a seminar in spring 2017 about the research supported by her grant. Congratulations to Dr. David, Dr. Klein-Pejšová, and Dr. Mitchell on their Library Scholars Grants!
David A. Reingold
Justin S. Morrill Dean
College of Liberal Arts