Three Humanities Faculty Members Selected for National Humanities Center Summer Fellowships

Assistant Professor of Communication Avery Holton, Assistant Professor of History Noel Voltz, and Assistant Professor of English Jeremy Rosen have all been selected for a 2018 National Humanities Center (NHC) Summer Fellowship.

Every summer, the NHC invites scholars from around the world to conduct research at the Center. NHC Fellows spend the month of June researching and writing with the amazing resources of the NHC at their disposal, which includes a world-renowned library and elite staff of research librarians.

Holton’s work navigates the intersections of digital and social media, news and information, and constructs of health and identity. Holton will continue to advance a large-scale project focusing on the emerging public discourse about genetic testing as it relates to cancer and other diseases and illnesses.

Voltz’s research interests include women of color in slavery and freedom in the U.S. and the Atlantic World. Voltz’s current book manuscript, The Sword in Her Hands: Antebellum Louisiana’s Free Women of Color and their Sexual Negotiation for Freedom, critically examines the ways in which antebellum Louisiana’s free women of color used their sexuality as a source of power and a tool of negotiation in their pursuit of freedom. The book argues that free women of color created sexual partnerships with white men to advance themselves socially and economically.

Rosen’s work and writing focus on contemporary American and global literature, and the blurry line between literary and pop culture. His next book project, Genre Bending, considers the adoption of previously “low” forms of genre fiction by esteemed contemporary writers of literary fiction.