Chancellor Kent Syverud | Syracuse University
Chancellor Kent Syverud | Syracuse University
The Mellon Foundation has announced the selection of Tessa Murphy, an associate professor of history in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and College of Arts and Sciences, as a New Directions Fellow. Murphy's appointment as a New Directions Fellow includes a three-year, $289,000 grant to support her academic pursuits.
As a New Directions Fellow, Tessa Murphy will engage in a year of coursework at the School of Information Studies (iSchool) to develop skills in extracting, organizing, analyzing, and visualizing large volumes of archival data. These skills will be applied to research in archives in Great Britain, Saint Lucia, and Trinidad, focusing on registries of enslaved individuals in the 19th-century British Caribbean.
Murphy expressed her enthusiasm for the opportunity, stating, "Obtaining training to analyze these registries through the lens of social history will allow me to transform seemingly static lists of chattel into rare windows on the experiences of people who lived and labored on Great Britain’s plantation frontiers."
The New Directions Fellowship, awarded by the Mellon Foundation, is intended for humanities scholars like Murphy, whose research necessitates formal training in a discipline different from their expertise. This prestigious fellowship is one of only 10 granted nationally by the Mellon Foundation this year.
Tessa Murphy's academic background and research interests lie in the Atlantic world, comparative history of the early Americas, slavery and race, the colonial Caribbean, and the age of revolutions. Her accolades include the publication of her book "The Creole Archipelago: Race and Borders in the Colonial Caribbean," which has received multiple awards from prominent historical societies.
In addition to her current recognition as a New Directions Fellow, Tessa Murphy has received research support from esteemed organizations such as the National Endowment for the Humanities and France's Institut National d’Études Démographiques.
This news article was authored by Michael Kelly.
Alerts Sign-up