Cornell history scholars in residence at Institute for Advanced Study

The prestigious Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) has granted fellowships to three history faculty members in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S) for the 2024-25 academic year.

Mara Yue Du, associate professor of history; Durba Ghosh, professor of history; and Rachel Weil, professor of history are pursuing research projects at the IAS campus in Princeton, New Jersey.

The IAS membership allows for focused research and the free, open exchange of ideas among an international community of scholars at one of the world’s foremost centers for intellectual inquiry.

During the fellowship, Du will complete a book manuscript titled “China: From a Nationless State to a Nation Defined by State,” a long durée history of the engagement between the evolving global order and sovereign notions in China since the 19th century. She will also start research for her next major book project, “Twice A Stranger: China, United States and Trans-Pacific Travelers.”

Ghosh plans to work on a book project titled “Moving Monuments: Colonial and Postcolonial Statues in Britain and India, 1780-1972.” It focuses on statues installed in Britain and India under colonial rule and removed after independence in 1947.

Weil will use the fellowship year to work on a project titled “Mere Detention: Imprisonment in England, 1550-1800.” It uncovers more than two hundred years of struggle between prisoners, gaolers, political authorities and reformers over what could be done to or by people who were locked up for reasons other than being punished for a crime.

Each year, IAS welcomes more than 250 of the most promising post-doctoral researchers and distinguished scholars from around the world to advance fundamental discovery as part of an interdisciplinary and collaborative environment. Visiting scholars are selected through a highly competitive process for their “bold ideas, innovative methods and deep research questions” by the permanent faculty—each of whom are preeminent leaders in their fields. Past IAS Faculty include Albert Einstein, Erwin Panofsky, John von Neumann, Hetty Goldman, George Kennan and J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Among past and present scholars, there have been 35 Nobel Laureates, 44 of the 62 Fields Medalists, and 23 of the 27 Abel Prize Laureates, as well as MacArthur and Guggenheim fellows, winners of the Turing Award and the Wolf, Holberg, Kluge, and Pulitzer Prizes.

Other A&S scholars who have received IAS fellowships include: Robert Travers, professor of history; Malte Ziewitz, associate professor of science and technology studies; Jill Frank, the President White Professor of History and Political Science; Kenneth Roberts, the Richard J. Schwartz Professor of government; Benjamin Anderson, associate professor of the history of art and visual studies; Julilly Kohler-Hausmann, associate professor of history; and Verity Platt, professor of classics.

This is the first time in recent memory that three Cornell scholars from the same department have been in residence at IAS simultaneously.