JHI Research Fellows: Congratulations to Professors Brown, Meyerson and Rockel!

November 23, 2016 by Department of History Staff

We are very pleased to share the news that Professors Elspeth Brown, Mark Meyerson and Steve Rockel have been awarded Jackman Humanities Institute Faculty Research Fellowships in the Humanities for 2017-2018. Please join me in congratulating Elspeth, Mark and Steve on this prestigious award and excellent opportunity! You will find descriptions of their projects below.

Best,

Nicholas Terpstra, FRSC
Professor & Chair
Department of History


Twelve-Month Fellowships, 2017-2018

Mark Meyerson, Department of History and Centre for Medieval Studies 

The Shame of Reconciliation: The Spanish Inquisition as a Truth Commission

This project focuses on the Spanish Inquisition as an institution of transitional justice, exploring how it worked to assimilate forcibly baptized Jews (Conversos) and Muslims (Moriscos) into Spanish Catholic society through 'reconciling' them with the Church in a judicial process which involved publicly disciplining and shaming them and which often had the unintended effect of impeding their assimilation.  The examination of the Inquisition's activities and their social ramifications will be integral to a comparative study of ethnic violence in premodern and modern societies and the efforts of societies to recover from such violence.

Six-Month Fellowships, 2017-2018

Elspeth Brown, Department of Historical Studies (UTM)

Reframing Family Photography: Queer and Trans Belonging

This project addresses the question of queer and trans relationships to family photography, with a particular (though nonexclusive) focus on diasporic Canadians based in the Greater Toronto Area. It will analyse the cultural and political work of family photographs in the context of queer and trans lives.

Stephen Rockel, Department of Historical and Cultural Studies (UTSC)

Slavery in Western Tanzania: Between the Global and the Local

This project addresses issues concerning the history of the slave trade and urban and agricultural slavery in the interior of East Africa during the late 18th and 19th centuries. It aims to uncover the histories of slaves who remained in Africa because they were absorbed into urban centres, plantations, and elite households before they reached the coast; we know little about the lives and work of these people.