Two GC Students Awarded Newcombe Fellowships

Graduate Center Ph.D. candidates Brian Bond (Ethnomusicology) and Douaa Sheet (Anthropology) were awarded 2018 Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. The fellowship is the nation’s largest and most prestigious award for Ph.D. candidates in the humanities and social sciences addressing questions of ethical and religious values.

Newcombe Fellows receive a 12-month award of $25,000 to support their final year of dissertation work.

Bond is examining the use of Sindhi-language Sufi poetry performance as a tool for teaching Islam in rural Muslim communities in western India. Bond says The Beatles initially drew him to Sindhi and South Asian music.

Sheet’s dissertation, “The Influence of Differential Conceptions of “Dignity” on Transitional Justice Efforts in Post-uprising Tunisia,” focuses on the intersection between morality and legal frameworks of reparation. Through fieldwork in Tunisia, Sheet has been exploring the multiple moral traditions informing the notion of dignity in the context of transitional justice efforts in following the country's 2011 uprising.