Artz Grant Recipients

2024

Timothy Groulx, BM, MMT '99, Associate Professor of Music Education, University of North Florida

Music Education at the Oberlin Conservatory–A History of America's First Four-Year Music Education Degree

Alex Harmon, Assistant Professor of English, Montana State University

The Boy With the Tin Star: Law and Masculinity in the American Western

2023

Kazimierz Bem, Independent Researcher

"Anarchists, Communists, and Women. Congregational and Presbyterian Missions to Polish Immigrants in Early 20th Century United States"

Kathleen King, Doctoral Student, University of Colorado-Boulder

"Forced to Fight: How North Carolina's Black Exiles Transformed Abolitionism and Tipped the Nation toward Civil War"

2022

Adam Arenson, Professor of History, Manhattan College

“Black North Americans from Oberlin into Canada and Back, 1860s-1930s”

Kevin Cedeño-Pacheco, Doctoral Student, Pennsylvania State University

“Situating the Political Philosophy, Aesthetics, and Art Activism of Anna Julia Cooper”

Shirley Moody-Turner, Associate Professor of English and African American Studies, Pennsylvania State University

“Black Women’s Organizing Archive: Anna Julia Cooper Digital Page” and “Anna Julia Cooper: An Interpretive Biography”

2021

No awards given.

2020

Award recipients unable to travel.

2019 

Ashley Serpa-Flack, Doctoral Student, University of California, Davis

“Shadow Diplomacy: The United States, the Portuguese Empire and the Cold War, 1961-1974.”

Blake Wilder ’03, English Department faculty, University of Maryland, College Park

“Mary Church Terrell, Black Soldiers, and the Fight for Citizenship.”

Kevin Yelvington, Professor of Anthropology, University of South Florida

“The New World Negro: Melville J. Herskovits and the Making of African Diaspora Anthropology.”

2018

ShaVonte’ Mills, Doctoral Student, Pennsylvania State University

“Antebellum Black Transnational Education Politics: Defining Freedom and Citizenship in Ohio, Canada, and Jamaica.”

Derek Catsam, Professor of History and Professor in the Humanities, University of Texas of the Permian Basin   

“No Doing Business with Apartheid: The Anti-Apartheid Movement on American College and University Campuses.”

2017

Nancy Chen, Associate Professor, Center for General Education, Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology

“Trial and Transition of Oberlin-in-Shansi: Ming-Hsien in Wartime China, 1937-1951.”

Matthew Hintz, Doctoral Candidate, University of North Carolina, Greensboro

“The American Faith Mission: The Development of Faith Cures and Divine Healing in Oberlin and Northeast Ohio in Postbellum America, 1882-1900.”

Jaclyn Schultz, Doctoral Candidate, University of California, Santa Cruz           

“Learning the Value of a Dollar: Children and Commerce in the U.S., 1830-1900.”

2016

Irina Muresanu, Assistant Professor, violin faculty, University of Maryland

In-depth study of the etude books written by French pedagogues in the 18th and 19th century and their impact on teaching modern violin technique (Oberlin Conservatory of Music Herbert K. Goodkind Collection and related materials)

Oran Kennedy, Doctoral Student, Leiden University, Netherlands

“Beacons of Freedom: Slave Refugees in the Northern States and Canada, 1800-1860.”

Joseph Yannielli, Postdoctoral Associate, Princeton University

“The Mendi Mission: Africa and the American Abolition of Slavery”

2015

Mary Freeman, Doctoral Student, Columbia University

"Letter Writing and Politics in the Campaign Against Slavery in the United States, 1830-1870"

Joseph Ho, Doctoral Student, University of Michigan

"In Memoriam: Missionary Photography and Protestant Martyrdom in the Boxer Uprising of 1900"

2014

John Bell, Doctoral Student, Harvard University

"A College Upon a Hill: Campuses of American Social Reform, 1830-1880"

James Lin, Doctoral Student, University of California, Berkeley

"Sowing Seeds and Knowledge: International Agricultural Development in the U.S., China, Taiwan, and the World, 1920 to 1975"

2013

Finbarr Curtis, Instructor, Department of Religious Studies, University of Alabama 

"You and You and You: Charles Grandison Finney and the Democratization Question Revisited"

Nicholas Guyatt, Lecturer, Department of History, University of York, York, UK

"Racial Equality and Programs of Racial Separation in the Republic"

Adina Langer, Independent Research, Haslett, Michigan

"History of the Oberlin Experimental College"

2012

Cathy Rodabaugh, Adjunct Faculty, History, Hiram College 

"The interconnectedness of political, religious, and reform ties in masculine relationships and political alignments on the antebellum Western Reserve" 

Joseph Ho, Doctoral Student, History, University of Michigan

"Be Thou My Vision:" Oberlin Missionaries and Photographic Visuality in China Missions, 1880-1950"

Carly Woods, Lecturer, Communication Studies/Women's and Gender Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

"Creating Rhetorical Spaces: Literary and Debating Societies at Oberlin, 1835-1900"

2011

Steve Gowler, Berea College

"The Life and Thought of William Goodell" 

Hongliang Gu, East China Normal School in Shanghai; Visiting Scholar, Harvard-Yenching Institute

"Lin Hoís Confucianism and His Experiences at Oberlin and Harvard"

Art Holbrook, Art Holbrook Productions, Victoria, BC, Canada

"Gentlemen and Saints: Oberlin and the Fight to End Slavery in America"

Leah Wright, Wesleyan University

"The Loneliness of the Black Conservative: Black Republicans and the Grand Old Party"

2010

Kabria Baumgartner, University of Massachusetts

"In Pursuit of Knowledge: African American Women and Educational Activism in Antebellum America" 

Rachel Cope, Brigham Young University

"Drops of Grace and Mercy: How Women Cultivated Personal Change through Conversion Processes"

Art Holbrook, Art Holbrook Productions, Victoria, BC, Canada

"Gentlemen and Saints: Oberlin and the Fight to End Slavery in America"

Kurt Edward Kemper, Dakota State University

"Race and the Limits of Reform: The Birth of Modern College Basketball"

Carla Stephens, Temple University

"Mozambican Liberation and American Activism, 1964-1975"

2009

Brent Morris, Cornell University

"'Be Not Conformed to This World:' Oberlin and the Anti-Slavery Movement"

2008

Nancy Neng-Chih Chen, Southern Taiwan University

"The Educational Enterprise of Oberlin-in-China: a Case Study of Ming-Hsien, Taiku Shanxi, 1904-1939"

Rachel Cope, Syracuse University

"'In Some Places a Few Drops and Other Places a Plentiful Shower:' the Religious Impact of Revivalism on Nineteenth-Centure Women"

Diane F. Eickhoff, University of Missouri, Kansas City

"Shall Women Preach? Antebellum Feminism, Ordination, and Antoinette Brown"

Derrick R. Spires, Vanderbilt University 

"Reimagining a 'Beautiful but Baneful Object': Black Writers' Theories of Citizenship and Nation in the Antebellum U.S."

2007

Christi M. Smith, Indiana University* 

"What Happened to Radical Reconstruction?"

*Ms. Smith used her funds in the summer of 2008.

2006

Dayton Haskin, Boston College 

"The First English Majors"

John H. Matsui

"If God Be For Us, Who Can Be Against Us?"

Margaret Ann Spratt

"American Women and the Search for Identity During and After World War I"

2005

Lynne M. Getz, Appalachian State University 

"An American Pioneer Family: The Wattles-Faunce-Wetherill Family and Their Commitment to Women's Education"

Jill M. Nussel, University of Toledo

"From Stew Pot to Melting Pot: An Examination of Women's Immigration Through Cookbooks, 1865-1919"

Dana E. Weiner, Northwestern University

"Racial Radicals, Principles Enacted: The Struggle Against Inequality, Prejudice, and Slavery, 1830-1861" 

2004

Carol Corbin, University College of Cape Breton

"The Taigu Mission After 1904"

Yvonne Fuentes, Louisiana State University

"Theatre of Ideas: The French Revolution in Spain"

Connie Heckert, Augustana College (free-lance writer)

"Biography of Charles Martin Hall for Children Tentative Title: Look Who's Cooking in the Woodshed! It's Charles Martin Hall" 

2003

Michael Les Benedict, The Ohio State University

"The Constitutional Politics of Reconstruction, 1869-1895" 

2002

Jonathan Benda, Syracuse University

"Politics and Language Teaching in Martial-Law Taiwan: The Cultural Rhetorics of Rhetorical Education at Tunghai University, 1955-1980"

Gregory Bond, University of Wisconsin—Madison

"Jim Crow at Play: Race, Manliness, and the Segregation of American Sports, 1876-1916"

Silvério Samuel, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Braga, Portugal

"The Political Philosophy of Eduardo Mondlane '54"

Stephen Vincent, University of Wisconsin—Whitewater

"Oberlin, the Ohio Antislavery Movement, and Educational Opportunities for Ohio's Free Black Community"

2001

Kevin B. Sheets, State University of New York—Cortland

"Taking Notes: The Organization of Knowledge and the Life of the Mind in the Nineteenth Century Oberlin Classroom"

2000

Timothy P. McCarthy, Harvard University

"Papers, Pamphlets, and Petitions: American Abolitionism and the culture of Dissent"

Heather A. Williams, Yale University

"Self-Taught: The Role of African Americans in Educating the Freedpeople, 1861-1871"

1999

Nikki Brown '93, Yale University

"The Oberlinian Origins of the National Association of Colored Women"

Michael Simoncelli, The College of William and Mary

"Becoming Northern: The Clash of Regional Cultures and the Creation of a Northern Identity in Ohio, 1770-1877"

1998

Stacey Robertson, Bradley University

"Women Abolitionists in the West: Race, Gender, and Politics"

Jonathan Zimmerman, New York University

"Storm Over the Schoolhouse: Popular Curriculum Wars in America, 1880-Present"

1997

Doris Malkmus, University of Iowa

"Women's Higher Education in the Antebellum Midwest: Origins of Coeducation"

Kenneth Wheeler, The Ohio State University

"The Development of an American Region: The College and Reform in the Old Northwest, 1825-1860"

1996

Clifford Putney, Emerson College

"The Gulicks: A Missionary Family, 1827-1963"

1995

Ruth Alperson '70, New York University

"Inda Howland at Oberlin College: The Application of Dalcroze Eurhythmics to Performance"

Leslie Dunlap, Northwestern University

"Protecting the Home, Enforcing Domesticity: Women's Turn to the State in Racial and Regional Perspective, 1873-1933"

Josephine Fowler, University of Minnesota

"Postgraduate Lives of Oberlin College Women of the Progressive Era"

Douglas Slaybaugh, University of Vermont

"The Influence of their Experience at Oberlin College (Class of 1912) on Laurence Howland MacDaniels (1888-1986) and Frances Cochran MacDaniels (1891-1986)"

1994

Amy DeRogatis '87, University of North Carolina

"Moral Geography: The Plan of Union Mission to the Western Reserve, 1801-1837"

Michael Mangin, University of California, San Diego

"Abolitionists Beware: The Politics of Racial Exclusion in Antebellum Ohio"

Scott Martin, Bowling Green State University

"Women, Gender, and Temperance in the Early National United States, 1789-1860"

1993

Robert Abzug, University of Texas, Austin

"Rollo May: A Spiritual Odyssey"

Barbara Christen, City University of New York

"Cass Gilbert's Grand Vision of the American Campus, 1899-1915"

Li Li, University of North Carolina

"American Missionary Response to Chinese Nationalism"

Catherine Rokicky, Kent State University

"Biography of James Monroe (1821-1898)"

1992

Detine Bowers, Purdue University

Dissertation: "A Strange Speech of an Estranged People: The Theory and Practice of Antebellum African-American Freedom Day Orations"

Mary Ann Dzuback, Washington University of St. Louis

"The Professional Construction of Knowledge: Women Scholars and the University, 1890-1940"

Kevin Grace, University of Cincinnati

"The Temperance Movement and Ohio Brewers Before Prohibition: Stance and Conflict"

Allen Guelzo, Eastern College

"Freedom of the Will: The Problem and Its People in American Thought, 1850-1950"

Laura Mitchell-Loretan, Yale University

"The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850: The Bible, Constitution, and the Individual Conscience"

Lorine Potts-Dupre, University of Maryland

"The Founding of Yale University, the University of Georgia, and Oberlin College: Case Studies of the Evolution of Lay Governance in American Colleges and Universities"

1991

Laura Graham, University of Rochester

"The Education of the Body: The Origins of a Middle-Class Work Ethic"

Christopher Losson, University of Mississippi

"Jacob Dolson Cox: The Civil War and Reconstruction Years"

Penny Russell, University of Virginia

"‘Bound By the Ties of Race and Sex': Mary Church Terrell, the First Fifty-Seven Years (1863-1920)"

John Mark Tucker, Purdue University

"Azariah Smith Root and the American College Library, a revision of "Librarianship as a Community Service: Azariah Smith Root at Oberlin College" Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois

1990

Timothy Lundy, University of South Carolina

"George Herbert Mead"

William Morison, University of Louisville

"G. Frederick Wright as Oberlin Professor"