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Sascha Goluboff Named Engaged Scholars Fellow

Sascha Goluboff, associate professor of cultural anthropology at Washington and Lee University, was selected as one of three new fellows in the “Engaged Scholars Studying Congregations” program coordinated through The Hartford Seminary.

The fellowship consists of mentoring, networking and research support with funds provided by the Lilly Endowment, Inc., and aims to enhance the ability of the participants to do excellent research on their projects. Goluboff and the other fellows will have the opportunity to sharpen research skills that allow them to take the life of faith communities seriously while they build a network of mentors and colleagues.

Goluboff will spend two summers (2008 and 2009) working on her project “African American Home Church: The Politics of Race and Religion in the Rural South.” The fellowship will support both summers of ethnographic research on the political and religious implications of congregants’ loyalty to their “home church” in rural Southwestern Virginia.

“The opportunity to be an Engaged Scholars Fellow is extremely timely for me at this stage in my project,” she said. “I come to this study with years of experience and networks in the anthropology of the former Soviet Union and Europe. So, while I have book knowledge on the topic of the Black Church, I need to connect with new colleagues who can read and evaluate my work, so as to push me to think creatively and knowledgeably within this new field of research.”

Goluboff is a graduate of Colgate University, and received both her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is the author of numerous scholarly articles as well as a book, “Jewish Russians: Upheavals in a Moscow Synagogue” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003).