5 humanities educators at ASU awarded prestigious fellowships this fall

Five faculty members from Arizona State University’s School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies have been awarded distinguished fellowships for the fall 2026 semester and 2026–27 academic year to advance their research.

The fellowships will take the faculty across the U.S. and abroad, while their research spans subjects from family histories and immigration policy to slavery, resistance and the philosophy of scams.

“SHPRS faculty continue to be very well represented in the world’s most prestigious and competitive academic fellowships — a testament to the caliber of our faculty and the excellence of their research,” said Professor Richard Amesbury, also the director of the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies. “We’re proud to be one of the world’s leading accelerators of innovative scholarship in the humanities."

Jian Gao — assistant professor of history

Gao has been awarded the David J. Weber Fellowship for the Study of Southwestern America by the Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University. He will use this fellowship to work on his second book project, tentatively titled “The Making of Modern Immigration Control: Labor, Birthplaces, and the National Origins Quotas.”

The project argues that the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act did not mark a decisive break from the exclusionary past of U.S. immigration law, but replaced overt racial quotas with new restrictions such as labor certification, per-country caps and the H-1B visa lottery. It offers a new interpretation of modern immigration control, showing how seemingly neutral policies continue to limit access. 

“I feel deeply honored to receive this fellowship,” Gao said. “The Clements Center is one of the premier institutions for scholarship on the American Southwest and borderlands, and I am excited to join its intellectual community.”

Chouki El Hamel — professor of history

El Hamel received a fellowship with the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. During the yearlong fellowship, he will work toward developing his book project, “Moroccan Marronage: Fugitivity, Resistance, and the Quest for Liberation.”

His work will address a significant gap in historiography by examining why North Africa’s history of marronage, the process of liberating oneself from slavery, has remained largely overlooked. It seeks to illuminate this neglected past, bridging established Western scholarship on maroon communities with Morocco’s untold narratives of resistance and fugitive survival. Drawing on a synthesis of neglected manuscripts from Moroccan and European archives, original oral histories and ethnographic fieldwork, this project pioneers a new social history from below. By centering narratives of resistance and fugitivity, it seeks to decolonize the historiography of North African slavery and empower public memory through the integration of these marginalized voices into the broader discourse on freedom.

“Receiving this prestigious fellowship feels deeply rewarding — a mix of relief, pride and gratitude, as well as a validation of my work and a sense of belonging among brilliant peers,” El Hamel said. “For scholars working on marginalized topics, such as marronage in North Africa, this recognition is especially meaningful, as it signals that neglected histories are being taken seriously by conventional academia.”

Nathan Ballantyne — associate professor of philosophy 

Ballantyne will travel to Cambridge, Massachusetts where he will be the 2026–27 Beatrice Shepherd Blane Fellow at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute — one of the world’s leading centers for interdisciplinary exploration. He will use the year to work on a book project about the philosophy of scams. 

A specialist in epistemology — the area of philosophy focused on questions about the nature and scope of human knowledge — Ballantyne has explored questions about trust in experts, intellectual humility and reasoning about our own errors. His new research project on scams turns to philosophical questions about deception, vulnerability and the value of heuristics in evading scams.

“The opportunity to visit Harvard is exciting, though I’ll definitely miss the wintertime in Arizona and cheering for ASU’s men’s hockey team,” Ballantyne said. “I’ve become a bit obsessed with scams. Thinking about the topic leads you to so many aspects of human life and experience — psychology, history, culture, technology, law, regulation and more. I’ve collected up a pile of books about deceit and fraud but have so far only read some of them. It’ll be fun to really dig in and hopefully make progress on my project. 

"Also, my best friend lives in Cambridge, so we’re going to see some college hockey games out there.” 

Volker Benkert — associate professor of history

Benkert will travel to Marseille, France, to serve as the Albert Hirschman Chair at the Institute for Advanced Study at Aix-Marseille Université and Sciences Po Aix. Over the six-month fellowship, he will work on his project, “More than Survival: Jewish Rescuers and Resistors in Vichy France."

The project illuminates survivance through the lens of the Loewy family, who saved 1,500 Jews and non-Jews from a camp in Vichy and fought in the French resistance. Drawing on literatures of history, memory, sociology, Holocaust and genocide studies, the project explores practices of survival linking the family’s resilience and agency with their ability to forge networks with different parts of French society.

“I am delighted to receive this fellowship,” Benkert said. “It will get me closer to the archives in France and to the completion of the project. I am thrilled to discuss the project with colleagues in France.” 

Alan Shane Dillingham — associate professor of history 

Dillingham has been named a Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers Fellow with the New York Public Library — one of 15 fellows chosen from a pool of more than 800 applicants for the 2026–27 academic year. He will use the fellowship to work on his book project, “We Never Walk Alone: A Story of Family, Dispossession, and Slavery in Indian Territory."

Dillingham’s book project uses family history to explore the intersection of Indigenous dispossession and racial slavery. Tracing the experience of his ancestors, removed from Mississippi to Indian Territory on the Trail of Tears, Dillingham will examine how slavery fueled the process of Indigenous dispossession while also interrogating Indigenous participation in these systems of oppression.

“I am both humbled and thrilled by the opportunity to continue the research and writing of this project at the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center,” Dillingham said. “The library’s rich collections will no doubt enhance the project, which aims to consider how my family, indeed many families, have been shaped by the logics of slavery and colonialism but also not defined by those systems of oppression. In my classes at ASU, I always emphasize to students that history is a narrative discipline, that we are in the business of telling stories, albeit based on rigorous research. The Cullman Center is an ideal place to research and write such stories.”