Maggi Morehouse, the Burroughs Distinguished Professor of Southern History and Cultures at Coastal Carolina University, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar Research/Teaching Fulbright Award to the United Kingdom. For eight months starting in January 2018, Morehouse will teach and tutor on African American topics in the recently initiated Black Studies Ph.D. program in the Department of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Nottingham. Her research project focuses on the attitudes of Black British toward Brexit.

"I will be conducting field research around the contemporary conditions of black lives in the U.K., asking specifically about experiences with the Brexit vote by which the U.K. will leave the European Union," said Morehouse. "My research will set contemporary realities into the historical context of identity formation within the U.K. and ultimately compare that history to the experiences within the African American community. The goal is to illuminate the contemporary attitudes, beliefs and experiences of individuals in the African diaspora."

Morehouse regularly teaches courses in the new African diaspora studies program at Coastal Carolina University. In addition to traditional scholarship, she provides historical consultation and crafts oral histories into visual short stories on topics ranging from black World War II soldiers, to enslaved potters, to Southern women, to African diaspora migration. She plans to disseminate her research via short-story broadcast media while in the U.K. and then prepare the life stories for archival and digital collection to share with the community and other researchers.

This is the second Fulbright award for Morehouse, who also completed a Fulbright Research Scholar posting at the University of the West Indies in St. Augustine, Trinidad, where she collected oral histories of black West Indians who participated in the British armed forces during World War II. She joins 18 other current CCU faculty and 12 retired CCU faculty who have also received Fulbright awards.

Morehouse is one of approximately 1,100 U.S. faculty and professionals who will travel abroad through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program in 2017-2018. The program is administered by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars, a division of the Institute of International Education.

"Dr. Morehouse's award is significant not only in that it will enable her to study the attitudes of a critical population in the United Kingdom during the Brexit planning period, but it also advances CCU's initiatives dedicated to diaspora studies and campus internationalization," said Darla Domke-Damonte, associate provost for global initiatives for Coastal Carolina University. "The relevance and strength of her proposal are also evident in that the U.K. is the most frequently requested site for U.S. Fulbright applications and therefore a very competitive applicant pool from which to emerge as one of the awardees. Over the last six years, eight CCU professors have received this award to work in Russia, Austria, Turkey, Czech Republic, Madagascar, Norway, and now the United Kingdom."

Information about Global Initiatives at CCU: Contact Darla Domke-Damonte, associate provost for global initiatives, at 843-349-2129 or ddamonte@coastal.edu.

About the Fulbright Program: The Fulbright 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. The primary source of funding for the Fulbright Program is an annual appropriation made by the U.S. Congress to the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations and foundations in foreign countries and in the United States also provide direct and indirect support. Since its establishment in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the Fulbright Program has given over 318,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists, scientists and other professionals the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns. For further information about the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, visit Fulbright or contact Elaine Clayton at 202-632-6445 or ECA-Press@state.gov.