University of Virginia's Governing America in a Global Era (GAGE) Program Will Fund Its 90th Fellow
This year, the Miller Center will fund its 90th Governing America in a Global Era (GAGE) fellow. The GAGE program puts the public in public intellectual. Initiated in 2000, the fellowship provides financial support to students who are completing their Ph.D. dissertation in fields that use history to shed light on contemporary U.S. domestic and foreign policies and politics. Besides identifying and supporting the next generation of cutting edge scholars, the program connects each fellow to a "dream mentor" and trains the fellows to communicate with an audience that extends beyond specialists. Eight fellows were chosen this year from 185 applicants enrolled at leading Ph.D. programs in History, Political Science, and Sociology. Download Press Release [PDF]
People are taking notice of the path breaking scholarship produced by GAGE fellows. Presses are, too. Cornell University Press has just agreed to a cooperative arrangement with the Miller Center to work closely with the institution to publish and promote future GAGE scholarship. "Every press is looking for authors who can make a contribution to the field and add their voices to public debate," remarked Michael McGandy, acquisitions editor with Cornell University Press. "The Miller Center is a place where scholarship meets with citizenship. We expect that some very important and influential books will be published through our cooperation with the Center and its scholars."
The GAGE program is perhaps best known for its "Dream Mentor" program. Each year, Program Director Brian Balogh works closely with his GAGE associates and the fellows to identify ideal faculty advisors that can best aid fellows in their research pursuits. Mentors are drawn from leading political science, history, and sociology departments around the world, and have included luminaries ranging from University of Pennsylvania historian Tom Sugrue to Yale political scientist David Mayhew. Throughout the fellowship year, these dream mentors converse with their advisees, and at the end of the year, mentors and fellows come together at an annual spring conference held at the Miller Center. The conference provides a forum for both senior scholars and graduate students to engage in discussions about current public policy issues.
The GAGE program's most distinctive mission is to make new scholarship more accessible to the general public and to make political scientists and historians active participants in open debates about public policy. The program provides training sessions with senior scholars who have also published hundreds of op-eds and who appear on radio and television regularly. Reaching outside the confines of the university, GAGE fellows look for creative avenues to make their scholarship available to the public. Former Fellow and Emory University Associate Professor Joe Crespino, for example, published an opinion piece in the New York Times that explored "The Way Republicans Talk About Race." He completed the op-ed during his GAGE fellowship year. The op-ed grew directly out of Crespino's history Ph.D. dissertation at Stanford University, "Strategic Accommodation: Civil Rights Opponents in Mississippi and their Impact on American Racial Politics, 1953-1972," which won the 2003 Dissertation Award from the Jepson School of Leadership at the University of Richmond. His dissertation led to his prize-winning book: In Search of Another Country: Mississippi and the Conservative Counterrevolution (Princeton University Press, 2007). Other fellows have also published their works in popular media outlets, becoming active participants in the creation of public opinion on key political issues of our time.
The 2009-10 GAGE roster includes Lily Geismer, a History Ph.D. candidate currently working with Professor Matt Lassiter at the University of Michigan. Her dissertation entitled "Don't Blame Us: Grassroots Liberalism in Massachusetts, 1960-1990," recasts the traditional narrative of postwar suburban politics. Historians Matt Lassiter, Kevin Kruse, and Joe Crespino have provided a detailed examination of Republican politicking in the suburban South, but Geismer hopes to focus on a new set of actors that often get left out of the story of Civil Rights era politics. Geismer contends that Massachussetts should be at the center of the "silent majority" narrative, arguing that New England liberals' reliance on voluntary and individual-based solutions to structural problems severely hindered civil rights reforms in the North in the latter half of the twentieth century. Northwestern University History and African American Studies Professor Nancy Maclean will serve as Geismer's dream mentor during her fellowship year.
Eric Lomazoff, a Ph.D. candidate in Government at Harvard University, working with Freed Professor of Government Dan Carpenter, was also selected this year. Lomazoff's dream mentor is Stephen Skowronek, Pelatiah Perit Professor of Political and Social Science at Yale University. Lomazoff will be completing his disseration, "The Life and Death of the 'Hydra-Headed Monster': Antebellum Bank Regulation and American State Development, 1781-1836." In his dissertation, Lomazoff reveals how a better understanding of the history of the U.S. Bank in the antebellum period can help Americans understand their often contentious relationship with federal financial institutions. In our current financial crisis, Lomazoff's work will prove invaluable to policy makers deciding how institutions like the Federal Reserve should weather the most recent economic storm.
Six other fellows will also be funded this year, including Gwendoline Alphonso, a Government and U.S. Politics Ph.D. candidate at Cornell University; Christy Chapin, a History Ph.D. candidate at the University of Virginia; Brendan Green, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Political Science Ph.D. candidate; Zane Kelly, Political Science Ph.D. candidate at the University of Colorado; Aaron Rapport, Political Science Ph.D. candidate at the University of Minnesota; and Vanessa Walker, a History Ph.D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Too often historians and political scientists engage in insular historical debates rather than reach out to a broader audience. Historiographical showdowns take the place of open forums that invite meaningful discussion between scholars, public intellectuals, politicians, and informed citizens. As a result, historians and political scientists have been relegated to the margins of public-policy decision making. The GAGE fellows represent a new cohort of academics who seek to address critical issues facing our nation by engaging a larger public in a discussion about patterns in American political development.
If you would like to know more about GAGE's current and past fellows and mentors, please visit their web site at http://millercenter.org/academic/gage.
People are taking notice of the path breaking scholarship produced by GAGE fellows. Presses are, too. Cornell University Press has just agreed to a cooperative arrangement with the Miller Center to work closely with the institution to publish and promote future GAGE scholarship. "Every press is looking for authors who can make a contribution to the field and add their voices to public debate," remarked Michael McGandy, acquisitions editor with Cornell University Press. "The Miller Center is a place where scholarship meets with citizenship. We expect that some very important and influential books will be published through our cooperation with the Center and its scholars."
The GAGE program is perhaps best known for its "Dream Mentor" program. Each year, Program Director Brian Balogh works closely with his GAGE associates and the fellows to identify ideal faculty advisors that can best aid fellows in their research pursuits. Mentors are drawn from leading political science, history, and sociology departments around the world, and have included luminaries ranging from University of Pennsylvania historian Tom Sugrue to Yale political scientist David Mayhew. Throughout the fellowship year, these dream mentors converse with their advisees, and at the end of the year, mentors and fellows come together at an annual spring conference held at the Miller Center. The conference provides a forum for both senior scholars and graduate students to engage in discussions about current public policy issues.
The GAGE program's most distinctive mission is to make new scholarship more accessible to the general public and to make political scientists and historians active participants in open debates about public policy. The program provides training sessions with senior scholars who have also published hundreds of op-eds and who appear on radio and television regularly. Reaching outside the confines of the university, GAGE fellows look for creative avenues to make their scholarship available to the public. Former Fellow and Emory University Associate Professor Joe Crespino, for example, published an opinion piece in the New York Times that explored "The Way Republicans Talk About Race." He completed the op-ed during his GAGE fellowship year. The op-ed grew directly out of Crespino's history Ph.D. dissertation at Stanford University, "Strategic Accommodation: Civil Rights Opponents in Mississippi and their Impact on American Racial Politics, 1953-1972," which won the 2003 Dissertation Award from the Jepson School of Leadership at the University of Richmond. His dissertation led to his prize-winning book: In Search of Another Country: Mississippi and the Conservative Counterrevolution (Princeton University Press, 2007). Other fellows have also published their works in popular media outlets, becoming active participants in the creation of public opinion on key political issues of our time.
The 2009-10 GAGE roster includes Lily Geismer, a History Ph.D. candidate currently working with Professor Matt Lassiter at the University of Michigan. Her dissertation entitled "Don't Blame Us: Grassroots Liberalism in Massachusetts, 1960-1990," recasts the traditional narrative of postwar suburban politics. Historians Matt Lassiter, Kevin Kruse, and Joe Crespino have provided a detailed examination of Republican politicking in the suburban South, but Geismer hopes to focus on a new set of actors that often get left out of the story of Civil Rights era politics. Geismer contends that Massachussetts should be at the center of the "silent majority" narrative, arguing that New England liberals' reliance on voluntary and individual-based solutions to structural problems severely hindered civil rights reforms in the North in the latter half of the twentieth century. Northwestern University History and African American Studies Professor Nancy Maclean will serve as Geismer's dream mentor during her fellowship year.
Eric Lomazoff, a Ph.D. candidate in Government at Harvard University, working with Freed Professor of Government Dan Carpenter, was also selected this year. Lomazoff's dream mentor is Stephen Skowronek, Pelatiah Perit Professor of Political and Social Science at Yale University. Lomazoff will be completing his disseration, "The Life and Death of the 'Hydra-Headed Monster': Antebellum Bank Regulation and American State Development, 1781-1836." In his dissertation, Lomazoff reveals how a better understanding of the history of the U.S. Bank in the antebellum period can help Americans understand their often contentious relationship with federal financial institutions. In our current financial crisis, Lomazoff's work will prove invaluable to policy makers deciding how institutions like the Federal Reserve should weather the most recent economic storm.
Six other fellows will also be funded this year, including Gwendoline Alphonso, a Government and U.S. Politics Ph.D. candidate at Cornell University; Christy Chapin, a History Ph.D. candidate at the University of Virginia; Brendan Green, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Political Science Ph.D. candidate; Zane Kelly, Political Science Ph.D. candidate at the University of Colorado; Aaron Rapport, Political Science Ph.D. candidate at the University of Minnesota; and Vanessa Walker, a History Ph.D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Too often historians and political scientists engage in insular historical debates rather than reach out to a broader audience. Historiographical showdowns take the place of open forums that invite meaningful discussion between scholars, public intellectuals, politicians, and informed citizens. As a result, historians and political scientists have been relegated to the margins of public-policy decision making. The GAGE fellows represent a new cohort of academics who seek to address critical issues facing our nation by engaging a larger public in a discussion about patterns in American political development.
If you would like to know more about GAGE's current and past fellows and mentors, please visit their web site at http://millercenter.org/academic/gage.