Past Fellows
Each year, the Center for German & European Studies awards six to eight fellowships to outstanding University of Minnesota graduate students in the social sciences and humanities for dissertation projects that advance our understanding of Europe. Since its inception in 2009, 36 Hella Mears Fellowships have been awarded totaling $500,000. The center is immensely grateful for this generous gift and investment in supporting the next generation of scholars and teachers.
Incoming Graduate Student Recruitment Fellowship
Berkand Caglar, Anthroplogy
Tanner Deeds, History
Summer 2019 Fellowships
Jose Aquirre Pombo, Spanish & Portuguese
"Transatlantic Baggage: The Cultural Itineraries of Iberian Returns"
Erin Crowley, Anthropology
“Food, Feasting, Cattle, and the Tise of Early Ireland”
Joshua Eichen, Geography
“Sugar Plantation States: Capitalism, Environment and Race-Making, 1520-1720”
Jennifer Hughes
“Viking Futures: Storytelling, Gender and Economy in Crisis Iceland”
Alexander Korte, Spanish and Portuguese
“Convenient Enemies: Viking Contact through the Eyes of the 'Invaded.' A Comparative Analysis of Iberian and English Chronicles”
Milica Milic-Kolarevic, Anthropology
“Responsibility: Ethics of Choice in Postcolonial Oncology Wards in Serbia”
Katherine Pierpont, History
“The Public Body: Sex Work in the 12th and 13 Century Southern France”
Joseph Sannicandro, Cultural Studies/Comparative Literature
“Impossible Spaces: Collectivism in Italian Aesthetics and Politics, 1967-1983”
Agnes Schaffauser, French & Italian
“Figures of the Migrant: Ethics and Aesthetics in Francophone Literature and Cinema"
Incoming Graduate Student Recruitment Fellowship
Cihan Demir, History
Summer 2018 Fellowships
Mario Cossio Olavide, Spanish and Portuguese
“Wisdom from Across the Sea: The Birth of Castillian Literature in its Mediterranean Context”
Natalia Defiel, Spanish and Portuguese
“Long-Term Censorship: Dissent from the Realm of Humor in Franco's Spain”
Alexandre Dubois, French & Italian
“The Poetics of the Sacred Space in France's Modern Age of Railway”
Yagmur Karakaya, Sociology
“Imperial Daydreaming about the Ottoman Past: Turjey as a Case Study in State-Sponsored Nostalgia”
Moritz Meutzner, German, Scandinavian & Dutch
“Eric Auerbach; Antihero of Cultural Criticism”
Karsten Olson, German, Scandinavian & Dutch
“Beyond the Public Sphere: The Secret Agency of Many”
Mikkel Vad, Cultural Studies/Comparative Literature
“April in Paris, Autumn in New York: European Jazz in the US, 1945-1970s”
Jan Volek, History
"Challenging the Reformation Paradigm: Religious Life in Central Europe, 1470-1530
Incoming Graduate Student Recruitment Fellowship
Christopher Levesque, Sociology
Summer 2017 Fellowships
Jazmine Contreras, History
"Gendering Collaboration and Resistance: Dutch Historical memory in a European Context"
Elizabeth Dillenburg, History
"Constructing ‘the Girlhood of Our Empire’: Education, Emigration, and Girls’ Imperial Networks in Britain, South Africa, and New Zealand, c. 1880-1920"
Shannon Flarety, Art History
"Tell Me About It: The Role of Confession in Contemporary British and American Art"
Marit Hanson, Spanish and Portuguese
"Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Cyborg: Corporeality, Alterity, and the Technological in Peninsular Women's Science Fiction"
Veronica Menaldi, Spanish and Portuguese
"Undenied Magic: The Function of Magical Practices and Their Practitioners in Medieval and Early Modern Iberian Literature"
Sandra Rellier, Spanish and Portuguese
"Recovering the Memories of ‘European-Africans’: Pieds-Noirs and Retornados"
Patrick Wilz, History
"In Cold Type: Print, Politics, the Public, and the Press in the United States and Britain, 1960-1995"
Summer 2016 Fellowships
Ana Anderson, Spanish and Portuguese
“Syntax in Contact: Variable Use of the –ra Morpheme in the Spanish of Galicia”
Tanja Andic, Sociology
“Anticipating the Future in Serbia: How Do Young People Imagine and Plan for Work in a Globalized Labor Market?”
Scott Ehrenburg, Spanish and Portuguese
“Lying and Dying for the Plural: Transformations of Queer Iberian Cinema”
Maria Hofmann, German, Scandinavian & Dutch
“Precarious Images: Documenting Human Tragedy”
Solveig Mebust, Musicology
“The Craft of Music: Norwegian Women as Music Patrons, 1870-1920”
Dylan Mohr, Cultural Studies/Comparative Literature
“Prisoners of No Nation: The Political Lives of Captive Art”
Charlotte Soulpin, French and Italian
“Composing with the Dead: Media Technology in French Literature, Cinema, and Television”