An Eastern Mennonite University professor has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to lecture at the University of Zagreb in the central European nation of Croatia during the 2008-09 academic year.
Mark Metzler Sawin, associate professor of history at EMU, is focusing on themes related to “constructing identity: teaching and the cultural work of history and literature” at the university in the capital city of Zagreb from September 2008 through June 2009.
The Fulbright program, America’s flagship international educational program, is sponsored by the United States Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. The program was established in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas. Since its inception, some 286,500 people – 108,160 Americans have studied, taught or done research abroad while 178,340 students, scholars and teachers from other countries have engaged in similar activities in the U.S. The program operates in more than 155 countries worldwide.
Fulbright award recipients are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement as well as demonstrated leadership in their fields.
Sawin, who joined the EMU faculty in 2001, completed his undergraduate work in English at Goshen (Ind.) College and earned MA and PhD degrees in American studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of the forthcoming book on Arctic explorer Elisha Kent Kane, Raising Kane: Dr. Kane and the Consequences of Fame in Antebellum America (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2008).
Metzler is active in researching local African-American history and is president of the Mid-Atlantic American Studies Association.
– Story by Jim Bishop
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