Affiliated Scholars
The University of Minnesota has a long history of studying immigration as a formative element of American life. Today the university and its surrounding region are home to one of the largest, interdisciplinary clusters of scholar/teacher/student experts on immigration, race and ethnicity, and plural nations anywhere in the middle of the continent. For a quick introduction to the long history of the “Minnesota School” of Immigration and Refugee Studies, check out this short article by Donna Gabaccia.
Interested in becoming an affiliated scholar even though you’re not a member of the University of Minnesota faculty? Here are some guidelines.
The IHRC is proud to list as affiliated scholars for 2009-2010:
Cawo Abdi, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Minnesota
Trent Alexander, Minnesota Population Center
Martha Bigelow, Associate Professor, Curriculum and Instruction, University of Minnesota
Elizabeth Boyle, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Minnesota, Read more
Donald R. Browne, Professor, Department of Communication Studies, University of Minnestoa, Read more
Sonia Cancian, 2008-2010 SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow and IHRC Visiting Scholar
M. Bianet Castellanos, Assistant Professor, Department of American Studies, University of Minnesota
Gary Cohen, Professor of History, Director, Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota
Evelyn Davidheiser, Director, Institute for Global Studies, University of Minnesota
Katherine Fennelly, Professor, Hubert Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota
Donna R. Gabaccia, Professor of History, University of Minnesota
Douglas Hartmann, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Minnesota
Daniel Karvonen Lecturer, Department of German, Scandinavian, and Dutch, University of Minnesota
Michael Lansing, History Department, Augsburg College
Erika Lee, Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Minnesota
Helga Leitner, Professor, Department of Geography, University of Minnesota
Enid Logan, Assistant Professor, Sociology, University of Minnesota
Louis Mendoza, Chair, Chicano Studies, University of Minnesota
Lisa Park, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Minnesota
Jeffrey M Pilcher, Professor of History, University of Minnesota
Catherine Solheim, Associate Professor, Family Social Science, University of Minnesota
Eileen Sivert, Professor, French and Italian, University of Minnesota
William Stauffer, MD, Medical School, The Division of Infectious Diseases and International Medicine, University of Minnesota
Eric D. Weitz, Professor and Chair of History and Arsham and Charlotte Ohanessian Chair in the College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota
Bogusia Wojciechowska, working on 'The Polish Diaspora 1939-50'
Additional Information of Scholars
In her work, Professor Boyle has explored cultural contradictions between the international system and local cultures in sub-Saharan Africa, and between dominant American culture and African migrant communities’ cultures. In Female Genital Cutting: Cultural Conflict in the Global Community (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), Professor Boyle considered the problem of democratically representing local culture in politics that are increasingly global. More recently, she has studied the political integration of members of African diasporic communities in the United States. Unequal power relations in the global system form the backdrop for this work as well as for her other current project on children’s rights in the global system. Professor Boyle’s work has appeared in the Law & Society Review, Law & Social Inquiry, Social Forces, the American Sociological Review, International Sociology, the International Journal of Comparative Sociology, and other journals. Her work has received financial support from the United States National Science Foundation, a University of Minnesota Presidential Multicultural Faculty Research Award, the McKnight Foundation, and the University of Minnesota Life Course Center.
Donald R. Browne served with the U.S. Information Agency in Tunisia and Guinea, where he also was overseas correspondent for the Voice of America. He was a Fulbright visiting professor at the American University of Beirut (1973-74), and a visiting professor at Lund University (Sweden, 1993). He has conducted research on electronic media systems for 50 years in more than 40 nations in six continents, and has written c. 70 books, monographs and articles on that subject, including "International Radio Broadcasting" (NY: Praeger, 1982); "Comparing Broadcast Systems" (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1989); "Television/Radio News & Minorities" (with Ellen Mickiewicz and Charles Firestone) Queenstown, MD: Aspen Institute and Carter Center, 1994); "Electronic Media and Indigenous Peoples" (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1996); "Electronic Media and Industrialized Nations" (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1999); and "Ethnic Minorities, Electronic Media and the Public Sphere" (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton, 2005). His current research interests are centered on comparative analyses of electronic media outlets through which ethnic/linguistic/indigenous minorities around the world express themselves. Honors include the Broadcast Education Association/National Association of Broadcasters Electronic Media Book of the Year Award (1990) for Comparing Broadcast Systems and Broadcast Education Association (Lifetime) Distinguished Scholar Award (2007).
Sonia Cancian arrived at the IHRC in January 2008 from Montreal, Canada, where she recently completed a dissertation in Concordia University’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture. The dissertation was titled “Transatlantic Correspondents: Kinship, Gender and Emotions in Postwar Migration Experiences between Italy and Canada, 1946-1971” Sonia holds a two-year post-doctoral fellowship from Canada’s Social Science and Humanities Research Council.
