USC Internal Research Funding Awards
The 2020 cluster is awarding the following summer funding in 2013:
Nathaniel Hsieh and Josh Romanu
Philosophy, Politics and Law; Biological Sciences
Travelling to Romania to explore the resistance of religious communities in Romania to the state oppression of the disabled and institutionalized by examining how doctrine can foster correct communal attitudes and how various church programs are fighting for the fair treatment of these marginalized groups
Hillary Epperson and Michelle Clark
MPA Program Sol Price School of Public Policy
Traveling to Australia to survey and analyze attitudes to resisting discrimination against Australian aboriginals in the 20th century
Hoest Heap of Birds
Ph.D. Candidate, Sociology
Collecting data for dissertation analyzing historical and contemporary Gabrieleno/Tongva and Fernandeño Tataviam forms and practices of resistance to genocidal logics, practices, and policy as they operate on the local Los Angeles contexts of U.S. colonialism and politics.
Ph.D. Candidate, Comparative Literature
Interviewing members of youth art/dance movements (The Underground in Los Angeles, Trasciende in Guatemala City, and AfroReggae in Rio de Janiero) that advocate against gang and state violence, and exploring how art enables people to challenge racist ideologies and practices on individual and collective levels.
Associate Professor, American Studies & Ethnicity, Sociology Department
Conducting field research in Chile among Mapuche communities for a book in progrees, Andean Freedom, that addresses the long arc of indigenous genocide in the Andes, showing how different iterations of settler and extractive colonialism have managed, ruled, and been subverted by native peoples from the 1526 Conquest forward.
Professor of Political Science and Director of the USC Institute of Armenian Studies
Working on a project using the model of Rafael Lemkin’s precedent to identify, comparatively assess, and evaluate the contemporary impact of various activists and thinkers who foresaw and sought to resist the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide.
Bannerman Fellow and Adjunct Professor, School of International Relations
Traveling to East Timor to conduct interviews with religious and community leaders about the role of the Timorese Catholic Church in resisting the Indonesian Army’s invasion and occupation from 1975 until 1999.
Visiting Ph.D. Fellow
Ian Zdanowicz, Political Science, Paris VIII University
Space as a Tool of Resistance and Survival: A Study of Spatial Tactics used by Jewish People during the Nazi Occupation (1939-1945) in Warsaw (in the Ghetto and on the “Aryan side”).
The main purpose of Ian's research is to make visible and analyze the spatiality of the Nazi occupation of Warsaw. Relying on survivor testimonies, he examines the territorial issues and Jewish spatial tactics of resistance in Warsaw during World War II (1939-1945), studying space on three main levels of analysis: urban planning, the spatial and social dimension of the street, and the space of habitat. According to his hypothesis, the definition, perception and use of space changed during World War II in Warsaw. Space became fluid, convertible, and permeable.
While at USC, Ian consulted Shoah Foundation testimonies to examine the use of space in contraband traffic techniques during the two Treblinka deportation roundups and in the course of the uprising and ultimate destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto. He focused in particular on the spatial issues and strategies on the ‘Aryan side’: How was it possible to get out of Warsaw ghetto? How could one rent a place to live outside the ghetto? How was it possible to circulate on the ‘Aryan’ side of the wall? What were the material conditions in these types of spaces? What were the dangers and power issues at stake with owners and neighbors? How constructed the various kinds of hideouts, shelters and bunkers constructed?