Northwestern theatre professor named Mellon/ACLS fellow

Elizabeth Son, associate professor of theatre with Northwestern’s School of Communication, was recently named one of the inaugural recipients of the Mellon/ACLS Scholars & Society Fellowship.

The fellowships, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, offer faculty who teach and advise Ph.D. students opportunities to conduct humanities-related research projects while in residence at a cultural, media, government, policy or community organization.

Son’s book project is titled “Possessing History: Korean Diasporic Women and the Performance of Persistence" and she will be in residence at KAN-WIN: Empowering Women in the Asian American Community. 

“I look forward to partnering with KAN-WIN, a local women’s advocacy organization doing tremendous work in the lives of survivors of gender-based violence,” Son said. “One of my projects with them will involve building an archive of oral history interviews with KAN-WIN organizers and the women about their stories of survival.”

Son added that her time as a Public Voices Thought Leadership Fellow at Northwestern inspired her to seek opportunities that support work that exists at social and cultural intersections.

The Mellon/ACLS fellowships offer a $75,000 stipend, plus $6,000 for research costs, and $10,000 in support for the selected partner organization. It also provides additional funding in the year following the fellowship for programming on the fellows’ campuses that promotes the public value of humanities scholarship.