New Endowment Provides $40K Annually to New Post Doctoral Fellowship in History

A generous benefaction by emeritus History professor, Chris Kent, has made possible a new postdoctoral fellowship in the History of Britain and the British World.

The Elizabeth and Cecil Kent Post Doctoral Fellowship in History, which carries an annual salary of $38,000 plus a $2,000 research allowance, was set up, Kent says, in part to honour the memory of his parents — Kent’s father emigrated from England as a young man, while his mother was the first of her family not born in Scotland.

The fellowship reinforces the department’s recognized strength in British history, Kent says, and offers post-doctoral fellows an especially good atmosphere for research. “The library at the U of S is very strong with good collections, so it was a good choice from the standpoint of resources,” he explains.

Kent, a specialist in nineteenth- and twentieth-century British cultural, intellectual, and social histories, retired in December, 2009. During his “retirement” he is completing a SSHRC funded study of English tailors, their clients, and the intriguing relationship between commerce, fashion, and “male body”. This is the first year the Kent postdoctoral fellowship has been awarded, and it attracted seventeen high-quality applicants, many of whom held PhD’s from impressive research institutions in England, the U.S and Canada. “It was incredibly difficult to choose between the candidates,” Kent says, “but at the end of the day, we decided that Justin’s was the strongest.”

“Justin” is Justin Bengry, who holds a PhD from the University of California in Santa Barbara. Dr. Bengry, who studies the economic power and commercial interest in homosexual communities in Britain going back to the late 19th century, says he’s grateful and glad for the opportunity the fellowship affords.

“When there’s so much discussion these days about the place of homosexuals in society, about the expansion of human rights, and marriage rights, in a number of countries, to gays and lesbians,” Bengry explains, “it’s interesting to me to find out more about how these discussions have been on-going in a variety of media for so long.”

Bengry will be using the fellowship’s two-year term to revise his dissertation into a book, continue his research, and do some teaching. “I love having the opportunity to teach,” he says, “and I love having time to do my own work as well – especially at a formative period like this, when I’ve just finished my PhD and want to strike while the iron is hot. Something like this, that gives me a couple years to build my profile, and build my scholarly output, and build connections while at the same time giving me greater credibility in the academy — I’m incredibly grateful for it.”

Karin Tate, Graduate Service Fellow for the College of Graduate Studies and Research