Caroline Radesky, a GWSS certificate student in the History Department, has been awarded the prestigious AAUW Dissertation Fellowship to complete her dissertation, Feeling Historical: Same-sex Desire and the Politics of History, 1880-1920. She is one of 250 recipients in the 2018-19 class of fellows and grantees.

Her dissertation examines how same-sex desiring women and men mobilized the past to think about their present. Using an interdisciplinary framework linking history, memory studies, queer theory, and feminist studies, she examines how these individuals resurrected and appropriated historical examples of same-sex desire drawn from Ancient Greece, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East to formulate a collective history and position themselves as a distinct, transnational community. Radesky asks which histories they found useful, and how gender, race, class, and ethnicity informed their historical reclamations.  She argues queer individuals inscribed the past onto the present not only to explain their sexual and affective experience, but also to navigate their own desire and create a world in which they could survive and even thrive

Congratulations, Caroline!

Recently featured in The Daily Iowan:  Caroline Radesky awarded AAUW Fellowship

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WASHINGTON — The American Association of University Women (AAUW) announced awards of $3.9 million to its 2018–19 class of fellows and grantees. These 250 recipients represent diverse backgrounds, locations, and areas of study but have one thing in common: They all aim to promote equity for women and girls.

“AAUW fellows and grantees have contributed to — and will continue to impact — so much of the world at large,” said Kim Churches, the chief executive officer of AAUW. “These trailblazers are breaking the mold in nontraditional fields and redefining what leadership and expertise look like. AAUW is proud to provide the critical resources necessary to help them excel in their chosen fields.”

AAUW is one of the world’s oldest leading supporters of graduate women’s education, having awarded more than $115 million in fellowships, grants, and awards to 13,000 women and projects from more than 145 countries since 1888. Candidates are evaluated on the basis of scholarly excellence, quality and originality of project design, and active commitment to helping women and girls through service in their communities, professions, or fields of research.

AAUW fellowship funding helps women manage the growing burden of student debt, an issue that disproportionately affects women. Unique to AAUW’s program, funding may also be used to pay for expenses outside of those traditionally associated with academic study, including child care and transportation — necessities that can help recipients’ continue, return to, and successfully complete graduate programs. AAUW prides itself on providing fellowships and grants for women returning to either extend or complete their academic goals.

“We are proud to have these awardees join and add to the over 130-year legacy of our notable alumnae,” added Churches. “Recipients now join the ranks of past awardees including journalist Melissa Harris-Perry, Ph.D., and astronaut Judith Resnik, Ph.D., to name a few. These awards change lives and these scholars, they change the world.”

To find out more about this year’s exceptional class of awardees, visit AAUW’s online directory.

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