Ten top scholars selected for exchanges to US

Ten top NZ academics and artists have been selected for Fulbright exchanges to the USA in 2010.

Fulbright NZ has announced the selection of eight Fulbright NZ Senior Scholars and two Fulbright Visiting Scholars in NZ Studies for next year. They will research and teach in fields as diverse as medical storytelling, military history, occupational therapy and the cultural identities of immigrants’ children.

The eight Fulbright NZ Senior Scholars include second time Fulbrighter Laurence Aberhart, who previously received a 1988 Fulbright NZ Cultural Development Grant to take photographs while travelling the length of the Mississippi and throughout the southern states of the US.

This time he will focus his attention on the Atlantic Seaboard states and visit whaling ports from which fleets sailed to NZ and the South Seas in the early 1800s, with a view to unearthing and photographing NZ artefacts and materials collected by early American whalers.

Other grantees selected for 2010 include leading NZ poet Glenn Colquhoun, a practising physician who will continue the longstanding relationship between creative writing and medicine by visiting narrative medicine and medical humanities programmes at Harvard, Columbia and Pennsylvania State Universities, with the aim of helping establish a similar programme at the University of Auckland upon his return.

Military historian Glynn Harper, director of Massey University’s Centre for Defence Studies, will spend five months at the Virginia Military Institute conducting research to reappraise the 1944 Battle of Monte Cassino, a battle which is central to NZ’s military history and remains one of the most controversial military actions of World War II.

Linda Wilson from Otago Polytechnic will lecture and research changes in occupational therapy, at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, New Hampshire. She is the first Fulbright scholar in the field of occupational therapy, which has undergone major changes in its 60 year history in NZ, and the only Fulbright NZ Senior Scholar this year from a polytechnic.

Two Fulbright Visiting Scholars in NZ Studies for 2010 have also been announced, who will conduct research in their own field of interest and teach an undergraduate course in NZ studies at Georgetown University’s Center for Australian and NZ Studies, as part of Fulbright NZ’s on-going commitment to provide the Center with a visiting scholar each semester.

Dr Doug Pratt from the University of Waikato’s Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies will teach a course on religion in NZ for Georgetown University’s Spring semester from January to May 2010, while researching the combined areas of religious plurality and religious extremism with particular reference to Islam and Christianity.

He will be replaced in the Fall semester from August to December by Prof. Lydia Wevers from Victoria University of Wellington’s Stout Research Centre, who will teach a course on contemporary NZ fiction and research the interactions and links between contemporary NZ fiction and America.

2010 Fulbright NZ Senior Scholars:

• Photographer Laurence Aberhart from Russell will photograph NZ artefacts collected by early 19th century American whalers, throughout the Eastern Seaboard states.

• Poet and General Practitioner Glenn Colquhoun from Levin will research medical storytelling programmes at Columbia, Harvard and Pennsylvania State Universities.

• Grant Hannis from Massey University Wellington will research the depiction of Chinese gold miners in 19th century US newspapers, at a yet-to-be-confirmed US host institution.

• Glyn Harper from Massey University Palmerston North will research the Battle of Monte Cassino, at Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia.

• Jeff Harrison from the University of Auckland will research medication therapy management programmes for prescription drug subsidies, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

• Keith Petrie from the University of Auckland will research the effects of patients’ perceptions of their illness on placebo treatments, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

• Paul Spoonley from Massey University Albany will research the cultural identities of children of immigrants, at the University of California, Berkeley.

• Linda Wilson from Otago Polytechnic will lecture and research changes in occupational therapy, at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, New Hampshire.

2010 Fulbright NZ Visiting Scholars in New Zealand Studies:

• Doug Pratt from the University of Waikato will research religious plurality and extremism, and teach a course on religion in NZ at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, for their Spring 2010 semester.

• Lydia Wevers from Victoria University of Wellington will research the interactions and links between contemporary NZ fiction and America, and teach a course on contemporary NZ fiction at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, for their Fall 2010 semester.