The research field of media, religion and culture is the focus of three doctoral dissertation fellowships and one post-doctoral fellowship awarded by the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Colorado at Boulder for the 2006-07 academic year.
Shazia Iftkhar of the University of Wisconsin, Christine Hoff Kraemer of Boston University and Montr茅 Aza Missouri of the University of London each will receive a $12,000 stipend from the Lilly Endowment in Indianapolis as part of their doctoral dissertation fellowships.
Monica Emerich of CU-Boulder was named post-doctoral fellow and will receive a one-year $32,000 grant to support continued research for her dissertation and publication.
"By bringing together newer scholars who not only share similar interests but who are at similar stages in their dissertation research, the fellowship program aims to encourage ongoing professional participation in conversations on media, religion and culture," said CU-Boulder journalism Professor Stewart Hoover, an internationally recognized authority on broadcast and print media coverage of religion news.
The doctoral fellowships were awarded in an international competition open to doctoral students working in the area of media, religion and culture. The fellowship provides opportunities to study with leading scholars in the field.
The doctoral fellows will be expected to attend two seminars. The first is in conjunction with the American Academy of Religion conference in November in Washington, D.C., one of the world's largest conferences for the scholarly study of religion.
The second seminar will be in early February 2007 at CU-Boulder. The fellows and their advisers will attend meetings over three days and present their respective work to a panel of invited scholars.
The research interests of the four fellows are diverse. Iftkhar is studying media narratives on the concepts of nation and citizenship in the context of race, class, gender and religion in contemporary France.
Kraemer's dissertation is titled "Beyond the Fringe: Alternative Religion and Sexuality in American Culture since 1960." She is examining how media grapple with tensions surrounding religion, gender, race and sexuality that captured American consciousness in the 1960s.
Missouri is researching the "Representation of Yoruba Spirituality and National Identification in Third Cinema." Missouri's work examines how national unity and identification is affected by the way Yoruba spirituality is portrayed in the cinemas of Nigeria, Cuba, Brazil and the United States.
Emerich's dissertation, "The Spirituality of Sustainability: Healing the Self to Heal the World through the Healthy Living Media," investigated the media's role in the evolution of spirituality in the healthy living movement.
Emerich will continue her research on how and why healthy living media spiritualize personal happiness, sustainable living and social reform. Emerich also will assist the CU-Boulder Center for Media, Religion and Study with ongoing research projects.
The fellowship programs are funded by the Lilly Endowment, Inc. For more information, e-mail Emerich at monica.emerich@Colorado.edu, or visit mediareligion.org.