July 2, 1012
Swann Foundation Announces Awards for 2012‑2013
The Caroline and Erwin Swann Foundation for Caricature and Cartoon, administered by the Library of Congress, is awarding fellowships to five applicants for the academic year 2012-2013. Recipients attend the University of Chicago; Duke, Harvard and Northwestern universities; and the University of Wisconsin.Rhae Lynn Barnes, a doctoral candidate in history at Harvard University, was awarded the fellowship to support research on her dissertation, "Darkology: The History of Amateur Blackface Minstrelsy and the Making of Modern America, 1860-1965." A major part of her study consists of creating a bibliographic database of amateur minstrel show guides, which include cartoons of black life in America. As she catalogs these materials, she will analyze how the cartoons’ themes and characters changed in relation to black freedom struggles.
Jill E. Bugajski, a doctoral candidate in art history at Northwestern University, will receive Swann support for research on her dissertation, "Red Dilemma: Totalitarian Spectacle and the Inception of the Cultural Cold War in American Art 1939-1949." Her project investigates graphic art and exhibitions in the United States in the context of America’s shifting relationship with the Soviet Union during the 1940s.
Sadam H. Issa, a doctoral candidate in African languages and literature at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, was awarded a fellowship to support research for his dissertation, "Picturing History: Palestinian Political Cartoons, 1948 to 2009". His study will examine how political cartoons published in three Palestinian newspapers—Filastin (Palestine), al-Quds (Jerusalem) and al-Hayāt al-Jadīdah (The New Life)—visually narrate the history of Palestine from the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 to the Gaza War of 2009. He argues that this imagery will provide valuable insight into Palestinian history, especially in relation to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and can serve as a pictorial form of Palestinian national narrative.
Julia Langbein, a doctoral candidate in art history at the University of Chicago, will receive a fellowship to support research on her dissertation, "Salon Caricature in Paris, 1840-1881." Her study focuses on caricatures of paintings that were displayed in the Paris Salon, the annual or biennial state-sponsored display of high art. Langbein aims to shed light on a little-studied type of caricature and to re-assert the importance of this powerful graphic art form in the history of the Paris Salon in 19th-century French art.
Emilie Anne-Yvonne Luse, a doctoral candidate in art, art history and visual studies at Duke University, received a fellowship to pursue research for her dissertation, "Anti-Semitism and Anti-modernism in France: 1918-1940." She plans to investigate imagery commenting on abstraction and representation in conservative French interwar periodicals. Her project will explore how critiques of modern art and its markets functioned as a platform for anti-Semitism in France.
During the coming academic year, the five recipients will collectively conduct research at the Library largely in General Collections and in the Prints and Photographs, Rare Book and Special Collections, and African and Middle Eastern divisions.
New York advertising executive Erwin Swann (1906‑1973) established the Swann Foundation for Caricature and Cartoon in 1967. An avid collector, Swann assembled a large group of original drawings by over 500 artists, spanning two centuries, which his estate bequeathed to the Library of Congress in the 1970s. Swann=s original purpose was to build a collection of original drawings by significant creators of humorous and satiric art and to encourage the study of original cartoon and caricature drawings as works of art. The foundation=s support of research and academic publication is carried out in part through a program of fellowships.
