The Office of the Dean of Libraries and University Librarian recently announced their 2018 Fenwick Fellowship recipients: College of Humanities and Social Sciences professors Mills Kelly and Jacqueline Burek. Kelly, a Professor of History in the Department of History and Art History, was awarded the Fellowship for his proposal, Mapping the Built Environment of the Appalachian Trail, 1921-2019. Burek, an Assistant Professor of Literature in the Department of English was awarded for her proposal, Mending a Broken Chain: Continuous History and Literary Form in England and Wales, 1125-1450.
“I am so pleased to be selected as one of the 2018-2019 Fenwick Fellows,” said Kelly. “This award will make it possible for me to make substantial progress on my research on the history of the Appalachian Trail, America’s first and most iconic long distance hiking trail. The end result of my Fenwick Fellowship project will be an interactive geospatial humanities project that maps out all of the shelters on the Appalachian Trail – those that exist today and those that are gone, along with contextual documentation and historical interpretation. This work will combine the methods of the historian, the digital humanist, and comparative architectural studies.”
When asked about being named a 2018 Fellow, Professor Burek said “The Fenwick Fellowship will help me complete a draft of my first book, Mending a Broken Chain, which studies how medieval conceptions of literary form influenced historical writing in medieval Britain. It also provides the funding necessary for building the university library’s collection of medieval historical writing, which will support my future work at Mason.”
Upon the completion of their research, professors Kelly and Burek will present their results to the University community at the public Fenwick Fellow Lecture in Spring 2020. The Fenwick Fellowship is awarded annually to up to two Mason tenured, tenure-track, and term faculty members. The faculty receive $5,000 each to go toward their proposal and research expenses. In addition, they also receive a private, fully furnished office at Fenwick Library for the duration of one calendar year.
Over the past 35 years of its’ existence, the program has resulted in multiple scholarly journal articles and books being published by Mason faculty members.
August 01, 2018
