August 3, 2009

Seven receive Fulbrights to study abroad in 2009–2010

Seven doctoral students and alumni from the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Peabody and SAIS will have the opportunity to study abroad during the 2009–2010 academic year through the prestigious Fulbright Program.

Established in 1946 under legislation introduced by Sen. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the Fulbright Program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Approximately 7,500 new grants are awarded annually, funded by an appropriation by Congress along with support from participating governments and host institutions, corporations and foundations in foreign countries. Approximately 294,000 “Fulbrighters”—111,000 from the United States and 183,000 from other countries—have participated in the program since its inception.

The 2009–2010 Johns Hopkins scholars come from a wide range of disciplines and have destinations spanning the globe.

Anne Flannery will travel to Austria to complete her doctorate in Germanic language and literature from the Krieger School. Her research focuses on the figure of the walker in modern Vienna and how walking becomes a way of reading a city through its architecture, signs, traffic, pedestrian walkways and districts. “My analysis will combine historical, cultural and discursive methodologies that will focus on the modernization of Vienna and how the process of modernizing the city affects and influences the development of the anti-flaneur [stroller] within 20th-century Viennese literature,” she wrote in her application. “I will examine literary texts by Arthur Schnitzler, Thomas Bernhard and W.G. Sebald as well as Michel de Certeau’s Rhetoric of Walking.”

Zane Forshee, a doctoral candidate in classical guitar at Peabody, will travel to Spain to study with Ignacio Rodes, professor of guitar at the Oscar Espla Conservatorio in Alicante. “My goal as a Fulbright scholar,” he wrote, “is to study, perform and record works written for the guitar by four of the most influential Spanish composers of the 20th century: Joaquin Turina, Federico Moreno Torroba, Joaquin Rodrigo and Vicente Ascencio.”

Brett Frankel will travel to Budapest to study Hungarian mathematics pedagogy at the undergraduate level. “My observations at the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics program will culminate in my own sample lesson plans and exercises and a mainstream journal article that outlines successful Hungarian teaching practices,” he wrote. “I will also enroll in graduate courses taught by leading Hungarian professors.” Frankel earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Krieger School in May.

Shannon Koh will travel to South Korea as a Fulbright English teaching assistant at the secondary level. “My experiences as a tutor and mentor, as well as living abroad and my visits to South Korea, have helped prepare me for the ETA in Korea,” Koh wrote. “I would like to teach the ‘big picture’ behind English, and help students gain the confidence to use the language. I also hope to incorporate part of my life into theirs through running. I want to portray a positive image of the U.S., as well as learn more about Korea and its people.” Koh earned her bachelor’s degree in neuroscience from the Krieger School in May.

A member of the Krieger School’s class of 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in political science, Moktar Sheikh-Salah will travel to Egypt to study the efforts by the government and local people to combat the food crisis in that country. He will conduct independent research at the Social Research Center at the American University in Cairo, pursue course work at that university and interview farmers, grocers and food vendors. “My research will provide scholars and policy-makers information that is overshadowed by regional crises,” he wrote in his proposal. “It will address a basic problem that, if left unchanged, could have a negative impact on the stability of Egypt and the region. It will also provide the government of Egypt with insight on the progress of the efforts by the government and the local population. After the completion of this research, I look to return to the United States and pursue a career in international development or in the Foreign Service.”

In pursuit of her doctorate at the University of Toronto, Flora Ward, who earned her bachelor’s degree in art history from the Krieger School in 2003, will use her Fulbright to travel to Spain to work on a project titled “Constructing the Camara Santa: Architecture, History and Authority in Medieval Oviedo.” It focuses, she wrote, on “its complex, ideologically laden history of reconstruction and interpretation.

“I read its structure, decoration and reconstruction in a historiographic context that attends to both medieval and modern transformations of the site,” she continued. “I argue that these transformations fundamentally frame our understanding of the Camara Santa, early medieval Spanish history and Spanish national identity as a whole.”

Anna Marzullo, who earned her master’s degree in European studies and international economics from SAIS in 2008, will travel to Spain to study Muslim immigrant integration in Spanish society.

Students and alumni interested in the U.S. Students Program of Fulbright should contact their school’s Fulbright adviser: for SAIS, Lisa Kahn; Medicine, Nursing and Public Health, Cassie Klein; and all others, John Bader. More information on the Fulbright is available at http://fulbright.state.gov/Fulbright.