Catherine and Charles Freeburg Fellows
Photo Above, Spring 2020 Fellows: (Top Row) David Miguel Gray, Matthew Thomann, Christina
Friedlaender
(Bottom Row) Matthew Isaacs, Rebecca Adams, Brian Kwoba
The Fellows Program encourages, facilitates, and highlights excellent research in the humanities and cognate disciplines at the University of Memphis. Participants spend a semester writing and researching in a collaborative, interdisciplinary environment alongside other research-active faculty members and advanced doctoral students. Since 2016, the Freeburg Fellows program has supported over 50 researchers at the University of Memphis who have published over a dozen academic monographs and forty essays based on their Freeburg projects.
Applications for 2025 faculty and dissertation fellowships are now closed.
For an example of the faculty fellowship application, click here. For dissertation fellowships, click here.
Applications for the 2026 fellowships will become available in January 2025. If you have questions, please contact Donal Harris.
The purpose of the Catherine and Charles Freeburg Fellows Program is to encourage, facilitate, and highlight excellent research in the humanities and cognate disciplines at the University of Memphis. This program allows recipients to write and research in a collaborative, interdisciplinary environment alongside other research-active faculty members and advanced doctoral students. By supporting and showcasing the research being conducted by our faculty and students, these fellowships strengthen the ties between the university and local community and demonstrate the vital role played by the humanities in our culture.
The fellows program is named in honor of Catherine and Charles Freeburg, whose bequest funds it. The Freeburgs were involved with the University for many years. Catherine Freeburg received an MA in English in 1972 and taught in the department for a number of years. Charles and Catherine were both active members of the Memphis community and supported many organizations. The couple met when Catherine began working as a realtor for Freeburg and Hammond, Charles' real estate company. They lived on Tuckahoe, very near the UofM, their entire married lives.
Congratulations to the Spring 2025 MOCH Freeburg Fellows!
- Katherine Fredlund, Associate Professor, English, Oberlin’s Daring Girls: A Digital Archive and Historical Companion
- Amanda Gaggioli, Assistant Professor, History, Earthquakes and the Structuring of Greco-Roman Society
- Nabaz Kareem, PhD Candidate in Applied Linguistics, English, Translanguaging Pedagogy and Academic Writing Amongst Kurdish EFL Learners
- Iván Ortega-Santos, Professor of Spanish, World Languages and Literature, Language, Power, and Identity in the Hispanic World: From Old Castilian to Spanglish
- Junmin Wang, Professor, Sociology, The Political and Social Origins of China's Techno-Nation
Past Fellows
2024 Fellows
- Zachary Auwerda, PhD Candidate, Philosophy, At the Intersection of Social Groups and Social Kinds
- Brianna Butera, Assistant Professor of Spanish, World Languages and Literature, Retention and Achievement of Underrepresented Students in Spanish Programs: An Equity Audit and Needs Analysis to Promote Equitable Teaching and Learning
- J. Elliott Casal, Assistant Professor, English, and Will Duffy, Associate Professor, English, Writing With AI: Perspectives, Policies, Pedagogies
- Aram Goudsouzian, Bizot Family Professor of History, The Sports Page: Writers, Athletes, and the Challenge of the Sixties
- Michael Pérez, Assistant Professor, Anthropology, On Becoming Other: Stateless Refugees and Alienation in Jordan
2023 Fellows
Faculty
- Bradley Dixon (Assistant Professor, History) Republic of Indians: Empires of Indigenous Law in the Early American South
- Simranjit Khalsi (Assistant Professor, Sociology) Practicing Minority Religion: Sikhs in the West
- Heike Polster (Associate Professor, World Languages and Literatures) Against the Tyranny of Time: Unnatural Feminist Narratology and Postwar Literature in German
- Kathy Lou Schultz (Associate Professor, English) Black Dada and Afro-Surrealism: Routes of Race in the Avant-Garde
Dissertation
- Gul Hos (English), Reproductive Migrant Labor in Contemporary Black Women’s Fiction
- Jasper St. Bernard (Philosophy), ‘Iola’ the Hierophant: Ida B. Wells-Barnett on the Monster
2022 Fellows
Faculty
- Darryl Domingo (Associate Professor, English), ‘Shop-Rhetorick’: Advertising and the Arts of Persuasion in Eighteenth-Century Britain
- Diana Ruggiero (Associate Professor, World Languages and Literatures), Fostering Cultural Awareness and Sensitivity through Community Engagement in the Post-Pandemic Classroom
- Lindsey Stewart (Assistant Professor, Philosophy), Black Feminism, Refusal, and Pandemics
- Micah Trapp (Associate Professor, Anthropology), Broccoli in Ruins: An Anthropological Account of How Food Becomes School Food
Dissertation
- Reese Faust (PhD Candidate, Philosophy), Dworkin, Dignity, and the Body: Constructing a Critical, Carnal Legal Hermeneutic
- Hagar Abdelrahman (PhD Candidate, History), The Pharaonic Cultural and Linguistic Survivals in Modern Standard Arabic and Colloquial Egyptian Arabic