Dzovinar Derderian - Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship

Dzovinar has received the Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship for next year, which will allow her to write and finish her dissertation by the summer of 2017. Her dissertation entitled “Belonging to Nation and Empire: Love, Law and Knowledge” concentrates on the Ottoman Empire’s reform era from the 1840s to the early 1880s and the Ottoman Armenians of Van.  The project focuses on how the institutions of education, government and land tenure were re-conceptualized and reformed on the model of the family, and in turn how the changes within each institution redefined gender roles within the family. In this process she explores how national and imperial belongings were re-defined and negotiated. 

Paige Milligan - FLAS (Foreign Language and Area Studies)

Paige has been awarded a FLAS (Foreign Language and Area Studies) fellowship for the 2016-2017 academic year, in order to fund her studies at CASA (the Center for Arabic Study Abroad) in Amman, Jordan. CASA combines intensive language study at a graduate level with opportunities for students to tailor-make classes to fit their own research interests. Paige's research interests include modern Palestinian literature, and while at CASA she hopes to explore the work of contemporary Palestinian writers/poets in the area, and prepare for her future research as a PhD candidate.

Marian Smith - Mellon Fellowship for Dissertation Research in Original Sources

Marian has received the Mellon Fellowship for Dissertation Research from the Council on Library and Information Resources. It awards $25,000 to 15 graduate students in the humanities and social sciences whose research uses original sources in innovative, interdisciplinary ways. The fellowship is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Cheng-Wei Lin - George F. and Celeste Hourani Memorial Scholarship, Rackham Outstanding GSI award, and the Rackham Graduate Student Research Grant

Cheng-Wei has received three awards. The Hourani Memorial Scholarship offers a full tuition waiver and monthly stipend for one semester, the Rackham Outstanding GSI award offers $1500 and a certificate, and the Rackham Graduate Student Research Grant is an award of $3000. He will use the Hourani scholarship to fund his last semester at the University to accelerate the completion of his dissertation. As for the research grant, he will use it as the incentive given out to the participants in his dissertation research, which investigates the input frequency of lexical stress in Arabic and how it is correlated with learners' perception and production.