Nathan Connolly, who received his doctorate in history from U-M, has been awarded the third annual Emerging Scholars Prize presented by the Institute for the Humanities.
The aim of the award is to recognize scholars in the humanities who are within five years of having received their doctorates, and whose work pushes academic boundaries.
“We look for work that is bold, inventive with elegant conceptualizations, convincing arguments and a mature style,” says Daniel Herwitz, director of the institute.
The Emerging Scholars Prize includes a first place award of $25,000, and two honorable mention awards of $1,000 each. To qualify, recipients must either teach at U-M or have received their doctorate from the university. Institute for the Humanities board member Cody Engle has funded the first three years of the prize.
Connolly, who earned his U-M doctorate in 2008, is an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University. His research focuses primarily on American cities.
The prize committee was unanimous in its praise for Connolly’s book, “A World More Concrete: Real Estate and the Remaking of Jim Crow South Florida,” forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press. The book, according to Connolly, “provides a social and cultural history of real estate capitalism and civil rights reform in mid-20th century greater Miami.”
Connolly also is completing an edited collection with Brett Gadsden of Emory University titled, “Desegregating Backlash: Liberals and African Americans in the Making of Modern Conservatism.”
Honorable mention recipients of the Emerging Scholars prize include:
• Ronit Ricci, who received her doctorate in comparative literature from U-M in 2006 and now teaches at the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University in Canberra. She has studied extensively the literary traditions of Javanese, Tamil and Malay-speaking Muslims.
• Tara Zahra, who received her doctorate in history from U-M in 2005 and now teaches at the University of Chicago. The award committee cited Zahra’s scholarship in reconceptualizing East European history through the study of the status of children in times of war and displacement.
