History

Nyhus Small Grant Awards, 2008-2009

Darius Alam '09 used the Nyhus Travel Grant to conduct research at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. as well as at the Harvard University Libraries. His project, entitled, "From Ümmet to nation: Islam, the Alevis, and the development of Turkish nationalism," explored the shift from a predominantly religious concept of political community that structured the Ottoman Empire to an emergent racial and ethnic concept of the nation-state. By focusing on state-treatment of the Alevis, a minority Shi'a religious group within the predominantly Sunni state, Darius was able to trace both the emergence of a race-based state rhetoric and policy, and the continued salience of religion in the formulation of modern nationalism. Darius' project was one of exceptional depth and sophistication, not least as it involved extensive research in both Ottoman and early nationalist (Kemalist) Turkish. The Nyhus Grant enabled Darius to access a tremendous range of little-explored documents for this powerful case study of modern nationalism at the borders of Europe.

Jacob Hearst '09 conducted a two-semester advanced independent study on education policy in twentieth century Nepal. A Nyhus Travel Grant enabled him to conduct research at the Library of Congress into Government of Nepal and Nepali Educational Commission documents from the middle of the century. Jake developed an interest in the question of education while studying abroad in Nepal during his junior year. What Jake sought to understand was the emergence of an ideology of modernization and development and how it took shape among ordinary people during the decades following the overthrow of the monarchy in 1951. Jake's research led him to realize both the longer history of an ideology of education for national development, going back to the early twentieth century among Indian-educated Nepali elites, and the distinctive break marked by the 1951 revolution: not least in that only from this moment did the state formulate a national education policy. Jake's research also uncovered the extensive role played by American advisors and the U.S. Operations Mission in supporting and shaping this policy during the Cold War era. Jake's project was able to place this American role alongside that of Nepali elites, both of whom sought to create a modern, unified Nepali people through education.

Jimei Hon's (09) project took her back to her native New York City, where she explored the culture of alcohol consumption during the early twentieth century. In particular, Jimei was interested in the ways alcohol consumption both shaped and was shaped by changing ideas about male-female relationships and social class. She used a Nyhus Travel Grant to explore the newspaper and pamphlet collection of the New York Public Library. Through this research, she was able to trace the emergence of a mixed male-female working-class public drinking culture during the early twentieth century, but also the ways in which the temperance movement enabled middle-class women to assume new public and political roles. Surprisingly, however, her research showed that by the 1930s, working-class women became major advocates of prohibition because of the effects of alcoholism on their families, while middle-class women were able to claim a space for themselves as genteel social drinkers. Alcohol consumption thus not only became a major subject for reformers concerned with "urban vices," but also took on new meanings and enabled new social relations between men and women and new public roles for women.

Wallace (Scot) McFarlane '09 conducted a project close to Bowdoin itself: a history of the early environmental efforts to address the pollution of the Androscoggin River during the middle of the twentieth century. His project focused on the role of a Bates College Professor of Chemistry, Walter Lawrence, who was appointed River Master of the river in 1947 with the task of addressing the deplorable pollution caused by the paper mills. As Scot's project explored, Lawrence developed an elaborate method of daily gauging the smell of the river, attempting to apply empirical science to the sense of smell and attempting to use smell as a measure of pollution. Lawrence's methods were highly controversial even at the time; Scot's research shows the force of environmental aesthetics and of scientific knowledge in the formulation of environmental policy. The Walter Lawrence Papers, housed at Bates and opened to the public just last year, formed the core of Scot's project. A Nyhus Travel Grant enabled Scot to make multiple trips to Bates, where he was the first person to access this invaluable material.

Previous Nyhus Travel Grant Recipients 

Nyhus Large Grant Awards, 2008-2009

Emily Guerin '09 was awarded a large Nyhus Travel Grant to support her research on the forestry industry in modern Chile. Emily's project explored the role of multiple actors in the plantation and native forestry sectors-the state, the private sector, unions, NGOs, and indigenous activists-during a period that spanned Socialist and Neoliberal military regimes. Emily had conducted some preliminary research in Chile during the summer before her senior year; the Nyhus Grant enabled her to travel to Chile again during the winter break to complete her primary research, conducting interviews with environmentalists and indigenous rights activists who were strongly involved with the anti-plantation movement. Although Chile has abundant natural forestry resources, this era saw the general abandonment of the native forestry sector, in large part through extensive government support for exotic species plantation forestry. One of Emily's most interesting findings was that the policies of the Neoliberal Pinochet regime from the mid-1970s through the 1980s in fact diverged little from those that had been instituted by the Socialist regime of Salvador Allende in the early 1970s. Her research enabled her to conclude that state interest in maintaining political control over a volatile region led the Pinochet regime to continue policies of continued state ownership and regulation of the forestry sector.