|  Center postdoctoral fellow awarded 2008 Lerner-Scott prize from the Organization of American Historians
Danielle L. McGuire, a postdoctoral fellow in Southern Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Center for the Study of the American South, is the recipient of the 2008 Lerner-Scott prize from the Organization of American Historians. She received the award for the dissertation that she is revising during her fellowship.
“It’s the Center’s mission to support the research of outstanding scholars like Danielle, and we are delighted that her work is receiving the recognition that it deserves,” said Center director Harry Watson.
Set between 1940 and 1975, McGuire's dissertation, titled “At the Dark End of the Street: Sexualized Violence, Community Mobilization, and the African American Freedom Struggle,” examines how sexual violence and the defense of black womanhood served as catalysts for the modern civil rights movement. In viewing civil rights history through the lens of sexual assault, McGuire's work sheds light on issues of sexual violence and power that plague communities throughout the world.
Each year, the Center awards two postdoctoral fellowships to support outstanding junior scholars in the revision of book-length manuscripts for publication in fields related to the American South. Projects that draw on the special collections of the UNC-CH Library or other research collections of the Triangle area, or that explicitly engage issues of southern regional identity or distinctiveness, are especially welcome. For more information, visit the Center for the Study of the American South’s Web site at www.UNCSouth.org.
The Lerner-Scott Dissertation Prize was given for the first time in 1992 for the best doctoral dissertation in U.S. women's history. The prize is named for Gerda Lerner and Anne Firor Scott, both pioneers in women's history and past presidents of the Organization of American Historians. |
