2024 Recipient: Leonardo Swafford
Leonardo Swafford, an English Major, visited Ireland during March of 2024.
Throughout centuries of Irish history, much has been made of an ostensible connection between the Emerald Isle and various civilizations of the ‘Orient,’ particularly those of North Africa, Persia, and India. These connections have been claimed in fields such as mysticism, ancient law, architecture, warfare, trade, physiognomy, and even knot work. Eventually, as Joseph Lennon points out in his seminal book on Irish Orientalism, such representations “gave birth” to the two antitheses of modern, enlightened Europe: the Celt and the Oriental.
Inaugural Recipient: Amina Thiam
Our first recipient of this award visited England in June of 2023.
She writes, “This June, I traveled to London for the first time in order to study both texts and material West African objects to examine pre-modern African culture, politics, and economies, most of which were dated prior to the age of empires. Through UMBC’s first Caroline Iannone Scholarship for Study Abroad, I was lucky enough to examine artifacts and collect both primary and secondary sources from the SOAS Library at University of London, the British Library, and the British Museum and use them to source and develop my undergraduate research dissertation. Most of these artifacts were Nigerian, Malian, Senegalese, and Ghanaian. My research involved the study of West African literature, architecture, warfare, and broader cosmology as it pertains to pre-colonial systems of governance. My goal was to examine this rich history and to discover a pre-modern lens of West Africa, outside a Eurocentric worldview. For this reason, I also explored the history of many specific artifacts and primary source collections and how their acquisition has shaped both their global visibility and the analysis of African contributions to medieval and early modern history. I plan to present this research at URCAD and examine facets of early modern African politics through artifacts.”
About the Scholarship
Caroline Iannone was the youngest child of Italian immigrants, born just before the Great Depression. She had no opportunity to attend college, or to travel while she was young. In her honor, this scholarship was established so that first-generation scholars can benefit from travel abroad early in their lives.
The purpose of this Fund is to provide need-based scholarship support to students minoring in Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS) and/or majoring in English or History, to travel abroad for research in these fields. Preference will be given to first generation students minoring in Medieval and Early Modern Studies or those who have taken courses in the concentration of Medieval or Early Modern Studies.
To apply, visit Scholarship Retriever. The deadline for 2024 is February 2, 2024.
