Professor Leslie Schwalm, chair of the Department of Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies with a joint appointment in the Department of History, has been awarded a University of Iowa Developmental Studies Hybridoma Band (DSHB) award. She will use her DSHB funding to present her research on embodied racism in the history of medicine at the 2020 meeting of the Organization of American Historians—the largest meeting of U.S. historians in the nation. Her research paper, “Last Rites/Lost Rights: Race, Research, and the Disposal of Human Remains during the Civil War,” documents the systemic impact of racism on wartime mortuary and burial practices. She illuminates the ways in which scholars have ignored the impact of racism and segregation on the disposal of the human remains of Black civilians and soldiers who sacrificed their lives during the Civil War. Bringing the question of whether, and how, race mattered in the treatment of war dead to her research in previously unexplored military records at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., Schwalm has identified clear patterns of pervasive differential treatment of Black human remains.
ABOUT THE AWARD:
Professor David Soll, the Roy J. and Lucille Carver/Emil Witschi Professor of Biology and the director of the University of Iowa's Developmental Studies Hybridoma Bank (DSHB), is an internationally recognized leader in the study of molecular pathology and cell motility. But he and the DSHB board of advisors are passionate about an equally crucial area of higher education: the humanities.
The reason is simple: They believe that for scientists to do their best work, they need the ethical grounding and communication skills that humanities education instills.
To ensure that aspiring scientists at the UI are learning from humanities professors at the forefront of research in their disciplines, DSHB funds the DSHB Faculty Scholar Awards for humanities researchers in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. CLAS administers the grants, including selecting the recipients from among applications. This year's recipients are Christopher Harris, Watraud Maierhofer, and Leslie Schwalm.
"We look at supporting UI humanities faculty as an investment in the future of science,” Soll said. “All scientists need the skills that the humanities teach in order to engage in forward-looking, ethical research and to communicate the relevance of their work to society. The UI has a uniquely strong foundation in the humanities, and we believe that those disciplines have a vital role to play in developing the broad-based perspectives that our science students will need to excel and have meaningful impact on their disciplines." The self-funded DSHB, an NIH National Resource housed in the UI Department of Biology, exists to facilitate biomedical research by providing monoclonal antibody samples to cancer researchers at a fraction of the cost of commercial markets.
The Developmental Sciences Hybridoma Bank (DSHB) Awards provide support annually to tenured CLAS faculty for an approved research project within the humanities. The award is expected to result in at least one project for publication, or a national/ international presentation. Awards are valued at $2,500, and may be used for professional travel, equipment, or other research needs.