Travel Grant Recipients 2021-2022

Ariana Alamonte

From February 21, 2022 to February 27, 2022, I traveled from Boston to Washington D.C. to conduct research at the Library of Congress for my Senior Thesis on Musical Nationalism in 1950s Venezuela. I made use of the Hispanic Reading Room, the Newspaper and Periodicals Room, the Performing Arts Center, and the American Folklife Center. The contents I discovered during this research period significantly transformed and developed my analysis of joropo in 1950s urbanizing Venezuela. Specifically, I sought out to discover whether or not Afroindigenous Venezuelans participated in a “culture from the bottom” with joropo—that is, whether they used the genre to reinterpret and transform the imposed musical nationalism and culture of the Perez Jimenez era. Instead, I found stories and publications pointing me in a slightly different direction—the racialized story of joropo as a fluxuating genre representing the contentiousness of mixed-raceness in Venezuela that Perez Jimenez then appropriated in his creation of a whitened, industrial, worker-based Venezuelan national culture.

Andrea Beltrán-Lizarazo

Thanks to David Palmer’s support, I have covered the expenses related to my research pertaining to the logics of justice and punishment within the War on Drugs. I was able to purchase essential books (paper and audio), hardware for voice recording, software, and to fund my professional association fees.

José Lopez Ganem

The funds provided by the Scott Palmer Travel Grant were applied to a research visit to the archives of the Culinary Institute of America (CIA). During this 5-day long visit, U was able to achieve: (1) gathering of complementary material evidence from the CIA’s material collection; (2) discuss with faculty and students the Applied Food Studies exhibition “Seeping a Stimulating History: Cacao, Coffee, and Tea”; (3) developed a database for the analysis of “Mexican Chocolate” recipes with the CIA pastry faculty, and (4) access the southern United States menu’s collection.

Constanza Robles

With support from a Scott Palmer Travel Grant, I traveled to Europe, where I conducted research in the National Library in Paris as well as several archives in Sevilla. In Sevilla, I also visited the grounds and pavilions of the Ibero American Exposition of 1929.