Two Historians Receive NEH Grants for Research Projects

Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences

Historians Yesenia Barragan and Judith Surkis are known for research that challenges our understanding of race, slavery, and the lingering legacy of colonialism.

Barragan, a scholar of modern Latin America and the Caribbean, is currently exploring how Black Americans in the antebellum period were drawn to Latin America as a refuge from the racial terror they were experiencing in the United States.

Surkis, a scholar of modern European history, is showing how France’s 132-year colonial rule over Algeria influenced intimate matters of personal life, provoking fierce custody battles among Franco-Algerian couples after independence while continuing to influence French politics today.

These two faculty members in the Rutgers University Department of History have recently received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities that will allow them to expand their research and publish books on their respective subjects.

Read more from Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences.