The Fulbright Scholar Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to "increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries." With this goal as a starting point, the Fulbright Program has provided almost 300,000 participants — chosen for their academic merit and leadership potential — with the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.

Newest Fulbright Fellows, Emelie Coleman and Giovanna Montenegro, are doctoral candidates in the Comparative Literature graduate group.

Emelie Coleman (left) will be in Tajikistan in June on a Fulbright grant, researching reception of women’s performance in literature and in practice. This will be her second trip to the country, and she is excited to weave together literary research, fieldwork and performance. In addition to her interest in Persian poetry, she is a musician and dancer, and will train in traditional Tajik dance and singing styles. Emelie is a principal dancer with Ballet Afsaneh, the Bay Area-based Persian and Central Asian dance company, and a company member of Wan-Chao dance.She is interested in intersections of performance, poetry and translation, and Persian culture in Central Asia and North India.

Giovanna Montenegro (right), fourth-year PhD candidate, will be spending the 2011-2012 academic school year at the Freie Universität Berlin under a Fulbright U.S. Student Program scholarship. Giovanna will work on her doctoral dissertation on sixteenth-century travel narratives authored by German and French conquistadors, mercenaries, and missionaries in Brazil and Venezuela. In particular, Giovanna will conduct research related to the Welsers and their colonization of Venezuela in the sixteenth-century. During her stay in Germany, Giovanna also hopes to continue improving her knowledge of German (and Russian with the Russophone residents), and engaging with the German Comparative Literature and Latin American intellectual communities at the Freie Universität, the State Library, and the Iberoamerican institute. She is also looking forward to eating currywurst and döner, as well as treasure hunting in Berlin’s many flea markets.

For more information, go to http://www.cies.org/about-us/what-fulbright.