Jennifer Uhler, the Regional English Language Officer in Tallinn, Estonia covers Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Russia, but she has also served in Central Asia, East Asia and South America. In all her assignments, Jen has brought an understanding of how English language skills promote cross-cultural communication, open doors to educational and job opportunities, and provide a way to share U.S. culture and values. The impact of her teacher-training programs has lasted long beyond her assignments and have been continued and expanded by her successors. Jennifer is the first Foreign Service Specialist to win the Lois Roth Award.
Ryan Milov-Cordoba won the inaugural Morocco Project Support Award for his project “Streaming the Sooq: Presents, Futures, and Pasts of the Moroccan Darija Hakawati Tradition.” Ryan Milov-Cordoba is completing his PhD in Comparative Literature at the City University of New York. The Project Support Award for Morocco will help Ryan visit remote areas and film documentation of Morocco’s Hakawati story-telling tradition. After Fulbright program, he plans to explore postdocs and assistant professorships at American and Moroccan universities to develop his research into a first book.
Patricia J. Higgins is a University Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Emerita, at SUNY Plattsburgh. Her UC Berkeley Ph.D. was based, in part, on research she conducted on education and socialization in elementary schools Tehran, Iran, from 1969 to 1971; she carried out further research on Iranian education as a Fulbright Lecturer at Tehran University in 1977-78. Higgins has held leadership positions with the Council on Anthropology and Education, the Society for Applied Anthropology and the Center for Iranian Research and Analysis; she is currently on the Board of Directors of SUNY Plattburgh’s DANESH Institute. She has authored and edited numerous books and articles on education and anthropology. In addition to Hafez in Love, she has co-translated several works from Persian to English with fellow prize-winner Shabani-Jadidi.
Pouneh Shabani-Jadid won the 2021 Persian Translation Prize for her translation of Iraj Pezeshkzad’s Hafez in Love. Formerly a Senior Faculty Lecturer of Persian Language and Linguistics at McGill University’s Institute of Islamic Studies, Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi is currently an Instructional Professor of Persian in the University of Chicago’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. With a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Ottawa and a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from Tehran’s Azad University, she has taught Persian language, linguistics, literature and translation since 1997and published on a variety of topics. From 2018-20, she served as President of the American Association of Teachers of Persian. Shabini-Jadidi has co-translated several books from Persian, partnering several times with fellow prize-winner Patricia Higgins. Of her approach she writes: “I have a passion for languages and how they work. Being a multilingual myself, I always find it intriguing to compare and contrast the structure and the lexicon of two or more languages…. When it comes to translating a book, I believe in collaborative translation where a source-language native speaker works closely with a target-language native speaker.”
Grace recently graduated from Colorado College with a degree in sociology and is conducting research on Exposing (Dis)connects Between Trans Life & Legislative Goals in Uruguay as she prepares to undertake a Master’s degree devoted to community-engaged research and activist scholarship. This project support award will support her need for transcription and translation services for her interviews with trans youth and community members.
Brandon is a PhD candidate with the Department of Spanish &Portuguese at the University of Wisconsin- Madison. He will use this award to support his Fulbright research on Variation in Intonation of Uruguay Spanish, and this award will allow him to visit previously unreachable departments and populations.
Bronte intends to use this award to supplement her Fulbright Graduate Award for the pursuit of Master’s of Art degree in Creative Writing, specializing in Poetry, at the New School in New York City. She will expand her technical and imaginative skills as a writer and connect with other creatives in the United States. Upon completion, she wishes to publish her first poetry collection. Further on in her career, she plans to teach poetry.
Dr. David Norman received our 2022 Denmark Project Award to conduct research on post-colonial Inuit arts and their critical relevance to global art movements. Dr. Norman’s work historicizes the continuity between Greenlandic artists who used art as a way of political activism before 1979 and the contemporary artists who challenged stereotypical views of Greenlandic arts in the 1980s and 1990s. On his return to the United States, David will work on his current book-in-progress, Home Rule Contemporary: Experimental Art and Self-Determination in Kalaallit Nunaat, which seeks to position Greenlandic art in the center of contemporary art history.
The 2022 award went to Kathleen Maris Paltriner. Kathleen is translating an anthology of ecopoetry to be published in the US where there is a lack of Norwegian poetry in translation. She will translate a total of nine poets writing in Bokmål, Nynorsk, and Sámi languages, carrying out her own translations from Bokmål and Nynorsk—the two written standards of Norwegian—and collaboratively translating with experts in the indigenous Sámi language group. On her return to the United States, Kathleen will publish the anthology to provide US audiences access to critical voices in the field of ecopoetry.
Elizabeth Schmidt, a graduate of Western Sydney University, received our 2022 Project Support award to conduct a policy and media analysis of Australian policy on the rights and safety of LGBTQ refugees in detention. Her research aims to address the experiences and needs of these refugees during displacement. Upon her return to the U.S., Elizabeth plans to work with non-profit organizations that advocate for the rights of vulnerable displaced population. She also plans to pursue a law degree focusing on human rights and migration to promote comprehensive US refugee resettlement policy, reforms to US asylum procedures, and humane conditions for asylum seekers who are detained in the US.
Radhika will use the Roth-Thomson Award for conducting research on maternal health among immigrant populations in Sweden. Her goal is to apply the research that she does in Sweden and intervention strategies that have been effective there to help women in the United States. Upon her return to the United States, she plans to enroll in a Master of Public Health and Juris Doctor joint degree program. After graduate school, she hopes to research and advocate for federal policies that will help immigrant women access quality, culturally competent perinatal care.
Kathlyn Elliott is pursuing a Ph.D. in Education at Drexel University. She plans to use the Roth-Thomson Award to support her research on the pedagogical tools used in the Finnish education system to prevent violent extremism and dismantle already existing violent extremism. Upon her return to the U.S., Kathlyn plans to finish her education, in hopes of working for the United States government or non-profit organizations on preventing violent extremism.
Dr. Devi Sridhar spoke on the topic, “Preventing the Next Pandemic: What have we learned about international health collaboration and what needs to change?” In this lecture, Dr. Sridhar examined the historical roots of international collaboration in health and the subsequent creation of the World Health Organization in the aftermath of World War II. Yet, during the COVID crisis, Dr. Sridar described how world health cooperation broke down illustrated by divergent and nationally-driven strategies on COVID-response, vaccine nationalism and hoarding by rich countries, and tense political frictions over the origins of COVID-19. Dr. Sridhar offered insightful thoughts on how the world can learn from the past and better manage the next pandemic.
A video of the lecture is available on the US-UK Fulbright Commission’s website.
This sixth of twelve portraits honoring alumni from thirty years of Roth Foundation programs takes a different approach, as it features the founder of one of our partner organizations, celebrating its tenth anniversary this month. Author Elizabeth Kostova, a champion of Bulgarian literature and international literary exchange, talks about the work of the foundation she started.
Author Elizabeth Kostova
Like the Roth Foundation, EKF emerged as a creative and dedicated response on the part of a few people to a wider perceived cultural need; we are very proud to have helped support its Sozopol Seminar and Dyankov Translation Award from the start. Elizabeth’s most recent novel, The Shadow Land, set in Bulgaria, was released by Random House in April.
I was first drawn to Bulgaria because I’d heard and sung some of its famous folk music and wanted to see where it came from. I arrived with a couple of college friends in November 1989, a week after the Berlin Wall fell, to do fieldwork on village singing. We took the overnight train from Belgrade to Sofia. As I woke early that morning to see the first mountains of western Bulgaria coming into view, I remember having the strange feeling that I was coming home to something. Over six months, I visited towns, villages, and city choirs, while the monolith of communism came down with a lot of shock and dust. Everywhere we went, I was moved by the beauty of the natural landscapes, the evidence of ancient civilizations crossing that patch of earth, the tragedy of Bulgaria’s recent past, and people’s kindness and hospitality.
My first novel, The Historian (2005), is partly set in Bulgaria of the 1950s; I wanted to give back something to the country that has inspired me as a writer from the proceeds. I had met many writers, translators, and publishers and was struck by the dearth of programs, awards or other forms of encouragement for those professions in Bulgaria. Despite brilliant exceptions, when I first started really paying attention it also seemed there wasn’t very much writing—other than journalism—that dealt with the communist past, which has a continued impact on society there.
Wanting to address this, the publisher Svetlozar Zhelev and I created the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation, of which I’m now only a small part. EKF has been an unprecedented success in supporting Bulgaria’s literary life—in large part thanks to our director Milena Deleva—in New York, who also oversees our US programs—and her associate Simona Ilieva, in Sofia. We’ve stuck closely to our original mission: to bring together Bulgarian literary professionals and colleagues from the Anglophone world; to create fair, competitive, juried awards and other opportunities in the field; to reward the work of outstanding translators; to establish the workshop model of discussing writing; and to get contemporary literature from Bulgaria into English and promoted worldwide.
EKF organizes three sets of programs:
—Every June, we hold our flagship program—the Sozopol Fiction Seminar—in the beautiful Black Sea coastal town of Sozopol. A global, juried competition selects five emerging writers from Bulgaria and five from the English-writing world for a week of intensive workshops and presentations. The seminar also features public lectures by distinguished writers from each language and panel discussions with pretty amazing rosters of writers, editors, translators, publishers, and critics from the US, UK, Bulgaria, and sometimes other countries as well. To celebrate its tenth anniversary this June, the seminar focused on creative nonfiction.
—With regard to translation, we sponsor the annual Krastan Dyankov Award for translation of a contemporary literary work from English into Bulgarian, an award that has become a major force in Bulgarian letters. We also cooperate with Open Letter Press to sponsor a Bulgarian translator to study publishing and editing with them in Rochester NY.
—Finally we host all kinds of readings and other events in both Bulgaria and the US. In 2015, we held Bulgaria’s first major poetry conference since the fall of the Wall. And in 2011, we brought the Nobel Prize-winning Turkish author Orhan Pamuk to speak and read in Bulgaria for the first time in his career.
Ten years in, I’m really proud on different levels. For one thing, Bulgarian literature itself seems to be opening up. Whereas ten years ago many writers were finding their way into literature through fables and magical realism, now they seem to be addressing a wider range of experiences, places, and historical subjects, and using a wider range of tone and attitude. I’m also proud to see the huge increase in the number of Bulgarian books published in English—when we began our work, there were only two or three contemporary Bulgarian literary works in print in English; now there are nearly twenty—and I’m grateful to several editors who have worked with us to host first-ever Bulgarian special issues and features.
I have also really enjoyed the many individual stories I’ve seen unfold—more than I can tell. For example, I think of the young Bulgarian professional translator who attended our annual translation workshop in Sofia and decided to try translating fiction for the first time. Thanks to her hard work, she won one of our translation residencies in the U.S. and then a Dyankov Award—a truly impressive trajectory! And I think of four or five young Americans who had never been to Bulgaria until attending the Sozopol Seminar… and subsequently returned with Fulbrights or other teaching jobs in the region. Most importantly, I think I can say without risk or immodesty that EKF has been crucial for many people in their decision to pursue writing or translation as a profession.
The 2017 Sozopol Fiction Seminar participants enjoy a break between activities.
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This text blends excerpts from an interview with Elizabeth Kostova conducted by Jessie Chaffee for Words Without Borders; you can read it here. Thanks to Drew Barnhart, our Media and Outreach Manager, for producing our June Portrait.
The 2019 Dyankov Translation Award was presented to Zornitsa Hristova for her translation of the novel “The Bonfire of the Vanities” by Tom Wolfe (List, 2019). Born in Dobrich, Zornitsa Hristova graduated from Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” with a degree in English Philology, having specialized in post-colonial literature at Oxford, with an emphasis on contemporary Indian literature in English.
In 2014, Zornitsa Hristova won the national “Hristo G. Danov” award, which is presented annually by the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture and the Plovdiv National Book Center to recognize contributors to Bulgarian literary culture, for her work in children’s literature together with the team behind “Tasty Geography”. She received the same award in 2015 for “When I Want to Be Silent”, together with the artist and co-author of the book. In 2010, Zornitsa Hristova received the Literary Translation Award from the Union of Translators in Bulgaria for her translation of the novel “White Noise” by Don DeLilo.
An Honorable Mention was also awarded to ECA’s Senior Program Manager for Diversity and Inclusion, David Levin. During his 36 years with ECA, he has built Diversity and Inclusion into ECA’s ethos instilling his fervent belief that international exchange and its life-changing benefits should be available to everyone and that exchanges are stronger and more impactful when they truly represent the diversity of American society and of societies abroad. It was David who connected the Fulbright Teacher Exchange program and Youth Exchanges in the 1980s, pushing ECA to expand its focus to inner-cities and rural areas. And way back in 1994, David moved to increase exchange opportunities for persons with disabilities by designing a grant competition that became the National Clearinghouse on Disability and Exchange. Today, American host families from small communities welcome diverse participants from countries around the world and American students from diverse places around the United States venture abroad. The diversification of ECA programs didn’t just happen overnight—it is due to David Levin’s efforts.
The 2020 Ilchman-Richardson Award went to the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs Director of Academic Exchange Programs, Mary Kirk. Mary and her team have extended the breadth of the Fulbright Program’s outreach and selection processes and reinforced their connection to foreign policy priorities, while ensuring the health, safety and productivity of the exchange experience for all Fulbrighters. Under her leadership, her team built alumni and partner networks and reinvigorated the Fulbright US scholar program, while strengthening financial accountability and management practices and expanding training and resource materials for ECA staff, Posts and Fulbright commissions. She is an undisputed master of meeting the daunting complexities and competing demands involved in the budgetary intricacies of extensive world travel for negotiations, mentoring and oversight. When the coronavirus pandemic hit, Mary led her staff to quickly pivot to address the many unique issues that arose within exchange policies and procedures in a virtual environment. She embodies the Roth/Ilchman/Richardson legacy through her tireless dedication and creative, insightful approaches as a cultural diplomacy leader and manager.
An Honorable Mention was also awarded to Cultural Affairs Officer Holly Zardusfrom the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo for her creation of BOLD (Bosanski Omladinski Lideri), a multi-faceted program to address the problems facing Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) by developing a new cadre of leaders. Holly marshaled a full range of public diplomacy programming, leveraged support from her network in Washington, D.C., and included the participation of the Ambassador and staff from other agencies and sections at post. She took advantage of existing exchange programs, and where those didn’t exist, she created new business-focused projects and short-term academic programs focused on civic and economic development. BOLD has drawn interest from other posts and has the potential for becoming a regional program.
The 2020 Lois Roth Award went to Cultural Affairs Officer Davida MacDonald from the U.S. Embassy in Rabat, Morocco. Davida was recognized for the “Moonshot Morocco” campaign she designed that transformed the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing into a year-long celebration and captured the imagination of thousands of Moroccans. The campaign provided STEM programming to Moroccan youth and demonstrated America’s leadership in the fields of space exploration, technology and innovation. “Moonshot Morocco” consisted of 50+ events across 24 Moroccan cities and engaged more than 15,000 STEM enthusiasts and emerging entrepreneurs in person and tens of thousands online through complementary social media content. The campaign capstone, “Moonshot Morocco Youth Festival,” attracted more than 6,000 attendees over three days and consisted of more than 100 activities, including workshops, plenaries and public events offering simultaneous programming. Participants described the festival–the first of its kind to take place in Morocco–as one of the most inspiring events they had ever attended.
As Public Affairs Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Antananarivo, Madagascar, Nicole has shown great ingenuity in cultural diplomacy programming that creates lasting mutual respect and understanding between the people of the U.S. and Madagascar. Her innovative programming included a modernized English language learning symposium, a musical education workshop series that brought together local and American artists and a U.S. film festival in which films were dubbed or subtitled in Malagasy. Nicole’s deep understanding of Malagasy culture and current cultural trends and her dedication to creating impactful programming reached previously untapped audiences and made the United States the leading voice in cultural diplomacy across Madagascar.
Elina excels in shaping 12+ exchange programs from inception to program and into ongoing relationships to the benefit of Kazakhstan and the U.S. When COVID canceled the in-person event for the International Visitor Leadership Program’s 80th anniversary, Elina conceptualized, implemented, and moderated a Facebook Live program with Washington and Embassy officials and over 120 guests that has garnered close to 3,000 views, significantly increasing the embassy’s influence and reach.
Joel Scott is a poet and translator from Sydney, Australia, currently a resident in Berlin. He translates from German and Spanish into English. He has a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Translation Studies from Macquarie University. He is currently working on translating the third volume of Peter Weiss’s magnum opus Die Ästhetik des Widerstands which is set to appear in 2023. He is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Bildverbot and Diary Farm.
