麻豆影院

Scholars to use awards to support research of听imperial legacy on听standardized testing in the Middle East and adult adoptions and family formation in Japan听

Two 麻豆影院 historians have won prestigious fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the group announced this month.听

The fellows from CU 麻豆影院 are听Hilary Falb Kalisman, assistant professor of history and听endowed professor of Israel/Palestine Studies in the Program of Jewish Studies, and听Marcia Yonemoto, professor of history and director of the CU 麻豆影院 Graduate Teacher Program. They are among 81 fellows chosen from a pool of 1,100 applicants.

鈥淭he 2019 ACLS fellows exemplify ACLS鈥檚 inclusive vision of excellence in the humanities and humanistic social sciences,鈥� Matthew Goldfeder, director of fellowship programs at ACLS, said in a听prepared statement.听

ACLS fellowships afford scholars the opportunity to spend six to 12 months researching and writing full time. The program awards fellowships of up to $70,000 each.

Each of CU 麻豆影院鈥檚 ACLS fellows recently discussed the focus of their fellowship-supported work.

Kalisman鈥檚 research project is titled 鈥�Standardized Testing: An Imperial Legacy of the Modern Middle East.鈥澨齋he characterized standardized testing as a means of social control in the Middle East, a region where this educational tool has had one of the 鈥渕ost significant impacts on students鈥� lives and futures.鈥�

Kalisman鈥檚 work focuses on Britain鈥檚 Middle Eastern Mandates: the areas that became Iraq, Jordan, Israel and Palestine/the Occupied Territories. After World War I, the League of Nations charged Britain to facilitate the transition of the Mandate areas from imperial holdings to nation-states.听

The British sought to postpone independence and strove to use standardized testing 鈥渁s a way of neutralizing or even repressing anti-imperial politics,鈥� she said, noting that local populations sought to retain the tests even after British rule ended.

Kalisman鈥檚 research will focus on the reasons for that development:听

鈥淐ould these exams, despite their creators' best efforts, actually offer the social mobility and political conflict that colonial officials feared? What was the relationship between the spread of standardized testing and that of English in the region?听 Why and how did the governments of Iraq, Jordan and Israel take up the standardized testing norms of the Mandates? Finally, how does privatization and competition over national and international exams shape the effects of standardized testing?鈥澨�

Kalisman said becoming an ACLS fellow is an 鈥渋ncredible opportunity for me, particularly at this stage in my career.鈥� She is now finishing a book on public school teachers, state- and nation-building in the Middle East, and she can now immediately begin a second book that grew 鈥渙rganically鈥� out of the first, she said听

One goal of her work, she said, is to counter the stereotype that rote memorization is a product of local religious schools where children learn to read, write and memorize the听Qur鈥檃n.听

鈥淏y analyzing countries which experienced British colonialism, including Islamic and non-Islamic polities through the lens of examinations, this book will break out of the limiting binaries of East and West, which have shadowed accounts of both schooling and culture.鈥�

Yonemoto鈥檚 research focus is 鈥�The Ties that Bind: Adult Adoption and Family Formation in Japan, 1700-1925."听She became interested in adoption while researching her first book,听.

As she read about women鈥檚 roles in households and about family formation in the early modern period, she was struck by how many families engaged in adoption, she said. Further, many adoptions were not of young children but rather late adolescents or adults, 鈥渦sually boys or men, and usually for purposes of securing an heir,鈥� she said, adding:

鈥淧articularly common, though, was the adoption of a daughter鈥檚 husband (such men were called听muko y艒shi, literally 鈥渉usband adoptee鈥�); such men would take their wives鈥� surnames and assume household headship upon the death or retirement of their fathers/fathers-in-law.鈥� Japan鈥檚 family system was and is patrilineal by law and custom, she said, 鈥渟o a family had to have a male heir or it would cease to exist.鈥澨�

By adopting a single adult male or a daughter鈥檚 husband, Japanese families were able to preserve a theoretically unbroken lineage in which household and family headship could be transmitted from generation to generation, regardless of the presence or absence of biological male offspring, she said, noting the practice was crucial in early modern Japan, 鈥渨hen overall fertility was relatively low.鈥�

Adult and son-in-law adoption remained common throughout the period encompassed by Yonemoto鈥檚 study and is still by far the most frequently practiced form of adoption in Japan today, she said.听

But the motives and meanings of such adoptions shifted dramatically in the late 19^thand early 20^thcentury due to changes in the legal system and in social norms regarding 鈥渕odern鈥� forms of marriage and family relations, she said.听

鈥淢y project explores why and how this shift in practices and attitudes toward adoption occurred, and examines its legal, social, and cultural ramifications across the early modern-modern divide,鈥� Yonemoto said, adding she also wants to examine Japan鈥檚 adoption practices in comparative context, both regionally and globally.听

Noting that she is 鈥渟o very grateful for the ACLS fellowship,鈥� she said such support is invaluable because it gives scholars听time to do the 鈥渇undamental research work (reading, thinking, writing) that ultimately expands knowledge and contributes to our fields of study.鈥�

Paul Sutter, professor of history and chair of the department, said the department has had good success winning ACLS fellowships; historians Mithi Mukherjee and Miriam Kingsberg Kadia won in recent years.听

鈥淏ut to receive two such highly competitive fellowships in the same year is quite a coup for us, and it speaks to the compelling research projects of Hilary Falb Kalisman and Marcia Yonemoto,鈥� Sutter said.听

Nan Goodman, director of the Program in Jewish Studies, said she and her colleagues are 鈥渄elighted鈥� by the ACLS award. 鈥淎 year off from teaching will allow Professor Kalisman to make considerable progress on her new book project and bring innovative ideas back into her classes on Israel and Palestine.鈥�

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