Pickett Awarded National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship
Holly Pickett, assistant professor of English, has recently been awarded a nine- month National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) research fellowship to the Newberry Library in Chicago for the 2008-2009 academic year.
Her project description is “The Drama of Serial Conversion in Early Modern England.” While undertaking this project, Pickett hopes “to offer the first book length study of the period’s historical and fictional figures who changed their religious affiliations multiple times.” She explained that “by examining the ways such converts responded to accusations of hypocrisy, my work uncovers the serial convert’s two fold challenge to early modern understandings of religious identity.”
Fellowships at the Newberry Library help researchers who want to use the collection but cannot finance a visit on their own. Fellows make the library their research home during their time in Chicago.
‘This is a very impressive honor and a wonderful research opportunity,” said Lesley Wheeler, professor of English and department chair.”While we’ll miss her excellent teaching and advising next year, we’re tremendously excited by this scholarly success and look forward to its results in print and in the classroom.”
“I am very excited about my time at the Newberry,” said Pickett. “They have wonderful resources in Renaissance religious materials and participating in the community of other fellows at the library also promises to be very exciting.”
