TAMIU's Dr. Kozaczka Awarded Prestigious Yale University Libraries Research Grant

Texas A&M International University (TAMIU) assistant professor of English Dr. Adam Kozaczka was recently awarded a highly selective Lewis Walpole Library Travel Grant by Yale University Libraries.

The grant will support a fully funded research residency for two weeks at Yale's prestigious Lewis Walpole Library in Farmington, CT this summer.

Dr. Kozaczka's research is titled, "Pinkerton's Racialism and the Law-Literature-Architecture Axis in Walpole and Scott." It focuses on the 18^th Century antiquarian John Pinkerton, whose arguments outlined early theories of racial and ethnic differences in the British Isles.

"The project seeks to discover how Pinkerton’s ideas were influenced by the ongoing popularity of antiquarian research in an era still quite early in the history of writing history and of doing ethnographic research," Dr. Kozaczka said.

Kozaczka emphasized the scholarly significance of the study.

"Much of this is significant because it follows new scholarship from scholars like UCLA professor Saree Makdisi, who contends that in the 19 ^th Century, discussions of what we now understand as race applied just as much to perceived differences among Europeans as it did to perceived differences between white and nonwhite people," he said.

The residency opportunity fosters collaboration among scholars, an aspect Kozaczka said he is excited about.

"It's also a communal and collaborative experience," he said, "There will be other visiting scholars in residence at Yale's Lewis Walpole Library and we will spend time introducing our work to one another and working to create a network that will last beyond the projects and hopefully into a future rich with collaborations."

The Lewis Walpole Library, a department of the Yale University Library since 1980, is an internationally recognized research collection in the field of British 18^th Century studies. Its collection includes half the traceable volumes from Horace Walpole's famous library. The library’s book and manuscript collections, numbering over 32,000 volumes, cover all aspects of 18^th Century British culture.

The Library is also home to one of the most important collections of 18^th Century British graphic art outside the British Museum.  Its 35,000 satirical prints, portraits, and topographical views are an incomparable resource for visual material on many facets of English life of the period.

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