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James Dawes Receives ACLS Fellowship

James Dawes, an assistant professor in the English Department at Macalester College, has been designated an American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS)/Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Junior Faculty Fellow.

In a national competition, ACLS made awards totaling over $2.6 million to 79 scholars for postdoctoral research in the humanities and humanities-related social sciences. From 1027 applicants, awards were made to 37 women and 42 men for research periods of six months to one year. The Fellows are affiliated with 64 institutions in the United States and one in Canada.

Dawes submitted a book proposal titled Cultures of Human Rights. In it, he draws upon literary treatments of atrocity and his fieldwork in the international human rights community to answer two primary questions: How do we make coherent narratives out of atrocity? And what are the ethical risks and obligations of doing so? The project reveals the inner workings and cultural significance of important literary texts and analyzes key ethical conflicts in the representational practices of humanitarian organizations.

The American Council of Learned Societies, with offices in New York City, is a private, non-profit federation of 68 scholarly associations devoted to the advancement of humanistic studies in all fields of learning.

Institutions and individuals contribute to the ACLS Fellowship Program and its endowment, including The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Council's college and university Associates, and former Fellows and individual friends of the ACLS.