IASA Memorial Fellowship: $1,000
IASA ANNUAL MEMORIAL FELLOWSHIP AWARD FOR GRADUATE THESES
DESCRIPTION
IASA awards this annual memorial fellowship to the author of the year’s outstanding doctoral dissertation or masters thesis proposal or project in Italian American and Italian Diaspora Studies. We welcome for consideration all approaches to these fields of study. Although the dissertation or thesis may be written in English or Italian, all application materials must be in English.
ELIGIBILITY
Graduate students whose work focuses on Italian American or Italian Diaspora Studies, including but not limited to history, language, film, literature, social sciences, the arts, ethnic racial identity, etc. are eligible to apply. Applicants must be members of IASA.
Applicants with recently completed projects must include proof of defense/completion within the calendar year before the award deadline (September 7, 2024). Applicants with projects-in-progress must, instead, include proof of project/proposal approval by their department chair or advisor.
Graduate students who do not win in a given year, but continue to work on their dissertation or thesis in the following year, are welcome to apply a second time.
Graduate students applying for the annual conference travel grants are contemporaneously eligible for the Memorial Fellowship Prize.
Decisions will be based on the following:
• qualifications (academic standing and pertinent subject matter);
• quality and significance of the project (research questions and methodology, articulation of problems, concepts and approach, originality of content and research);
• evidence of steady, timely progress on the project; and
• potential impact of the project on related fields of study and Italian American and Italian Diaspora Studies in general.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
1. Application materials must be in English (the project itself may be written in English or Italian)
2. Please upload the following documents in .docx or pdf format to Submittable: https://italianamericanstudies.submittable.com/submit/141067/iasa-memorial-fellowship-1-000
● Cover letter: In 150 words or less, briefly describe your dissertation or thesis project and your progress toward completion.
● Project description: In three double-spaced pages or less (standard 12-point font with 1-inch margins), describe the dissertation project or M.A. thesis that has either been recently completed or is currently in-progress. Clearly state the title and scope of your project. Clearly explain the significance of your research and how it contributes to the advancement of knowledge in the field of Italian American and/or Italian Diaspora Studies.
● Curriculum vitae: Document should include your current mailing address, e-mail address, and telephone number and focus on publications, courses, professional activities, and awards. Maximum length not to exceed two pages.
● Unofficial transcripts: Proof of good standing, scanned as PDF, preferably.
● Two letters of reference: One letter should come from an academic advisor, thesis committee member, and/or dissertation director, and directly address the relevance of your project to the furthering of Italian American / Italian Diaspora Studies. Both letters must be in English.
3. Please provide recommenders with necessary information about your application, project, deadlines, etc. in a timely fashion.
4. Recommenders must upload their letters directly by themselves in .docx or .pdf format to Submittable: https://italianamericanstudies.submittable.com/forms/reference/
For any questions about the application process, please contact the Chair of the Fellowship/Award Committee, Dr. Rosetta Giuliani Caponetto at rgc0006@auburn.edu
DEADLINE: September 7, 2024
Late or incomplete applications will not be considered. The fellowship recipient will be notified via e-mail and will also be announced at the annual IASA conference. Attendance and participation in the conference are strongly encouraged. Funds will be awarded at or after the conference.
IASA Memorial Fellowship: Past Winners
2023: Claudio Staiti, University of San Marino, for his project “From Social Reformism to American Nativism: The Crisis of the ‘Melting Pot’ Ideal and the Problem of Citizenship in the United States of the 1920s. For a Biography of Gino C. Speranza (1872-1927)”
2022: Cinzia Marongiu, Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz, for her project "Blacks and Italians in the making of multiethnic America. The Relations with Africa and African-Americans in the Works of Kym Ragusa, Mary Bucci Bush and Louisa Calio"
AND
Michele Segretario, University of California, Berkeley, for her project, “The Traveling Soundscape - An Acoustic Ethnography of the Italian Diaspora”
2021: Gilberto Mazzoli, European University Institute, for his project, “Portable Natures: Environmental Visions, Urban Practices, Migratory Flows, Agriculture and the Italian American Experience in North American Cities, 1880-1940.”
2020: Jessica Barbata Jackson, for Dixie’s Italians: Sicilians, Race, and Citizenship in the Jim Crow Gulf South & Giorgio Bertellini for The Divo and the Duce: Promoting Film Stardom and Political Leadership in 1920s America
2019: Ryan Antonucci, Building a New (Deal) Identity: The Evolution of Italian-American Political Culture, 1910-1936 & Anthony Mitzel, Ephemerality and Diaspora the Memes of Production in Italian American Culture
2018: Jessica Leonora Whitehead, "Cinema-Going on the Margins: The Mascioli Film Circuit of Northeastern Ontario"
2017: Eva Pelayo Sanudo, "Genre, Gender and Space: Family Saga, Streets in the Italian American Experience"
2016: No Fellowship Awarded
2015: Anna Ciamparella, "World Greetings: Atlantic and Cosmopolitan Reflections on Giuseppe Ungaretti's, Langston Hughes's, and Antonio D'Alfonso's Works"
2014: Anthony Mitzel, "The Ethnogenesis of Youngstown's Italians: Studying Narrative Accounts
2013: Sarah Salter, "Patterns of Imagination and Recognition in Italy and the United States 1790-1910"
2012: Andrew Hoyt, "The Black Ink of the Subversive Press: Propaganda Networks, Radical Print Culture, and Revolutionary Social Fields"
2011: Laura Cappone, "Local Responses to International Challenges: The Migratory and Entrepreneurial Experiences of Casalviovani in Detroit, Windsor, San Diego, and Toronto"
2010: Theodora Patrona, "Novels of Return: Ethnic Space in Contemporary Greek American and Italian American Literature"
2009: Evelyn Ferraro, "Italian National Identity and the Culture of Migration"
2008: Danielle Battisti, "Italian Immigration in the U.S. after World War II"
