THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Fellow Testimonials
Elizabeth Hines, PhD - 2021-22 Lloyd & Susanne Rudolph Field Research Grant Fellow
Interview by Tessa Webb
1. Congratulations on finishing your PhD! How has your experience at the University of Chicago shaped your academic interests and research focus?
Thank you! I am so grateful for my time at the University of Chicago, particularly the vibrant and growing community of scholars studying the early modern period. The university's workshop culture encourages these scholars to share their work regularly and keep abreast of each other's new findings. I enjoyed participating in the British and Imperial Workshop, the Early Modern and Mediterranean Worlds Workshop, the Empires Forum, the History and Social Sciences Forum, the History and Theory of Capitalism Workshop, and the Renaissance Workshop during my time at Chicago. I think that these workshops help structure the PhD program more than people realize, since they create incentives for students to produce chapter drafts at a regular pace so that they can share them at workshops. I found that this system worked better for me than that of collecting research for several years, then trying to write it up into chapters all during the final year. I also found that the feedback I received at workshops helped determine the direction of new chapters, as the other students and professors were always most interested in the imperial elements of the Anglo-Dutch story I was researching. They encouraged me to dig further into the joint nature of the imperial projects in the Anglo-Dutch sphere.
2. Reflecting on your time as a PhD student, what advice would you give to current and prospective graduate students in the field of history?
My main piece of advice is to seek feedback early and often. I struggled to show others my work when I was starting out, knowing that it wasn't very good yet, but I was only able to improve when I got up the courage to share drafts and revise them based on others' comments. Relatedly, a professor gave me the advice years ago that "if you're not getting rejected, you're not applying for enough things," which has always served me well. I apply for every opportunity I find to share my work and get feedback, and I also apply for grants and fellowships at every archive I want to visit. (I annoy my friends by sending them calls for papers and grants relevant to their topics all the time.) I have never regretted applying for anything, but I have regretted many instances of choosing not to do so for one reason or another. Getting practice handling rejection also helps with the move from applying for grants and conferences to submitting articles to journals and applying for postdocs and jobs.
3. Can you tell us more about your upcoming postdoc at Johns Hopkins? What specific projects or goals do you have for this fellowship?
I will be an Ax:son Johnson Institute for Statecraft and Diplomacy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Kissinger Center at Johns Hopkins SAIS. The postdoc is part of a consortium with the Centre for Geopolitics at Cambridge, the Centre for Grand Strategy at King’s College London, and the Center for Statecraft and Strategic Communication at the Stockholm School of Economics. To help the postdoctoral fellows focus on our work's relevance to today's world, the program includes opportunities to present our work to audiences beyond our small research areas. A former participant told me that this focus on relevance helped him to hone his argument and turn his dissertation into a book with much wider appeal. With his experience as an example, I'm looking forward to working on my book manuscript and examining further why trans-imperial projects four hundred years ago matter to our understanding of the world today. There are also specific new research questions I am excited to pursue, including why England and the Netherlands combined their East India Companies in 1619 and why Dutchmen led the North American colony of New Sweden.
4. You’ve received several fellowships and awards this year. How have these opportunities influenced your research, and what impact do you hope to achieve with the support of these fellowships?
I would like to thank the Cromwell Association, Florida Atlantic University, the Huntington Library, the New England Regional Fellowship Consortium, the Omohundro Institute, and the University of Chicago Forum on Free Inquiry and Expression for supporting my research in 2024. Their support facilitated research trips to England, France, and the Netherlands that helped me complete my dissertation. I had previously collected lots of material on Dutch loans to combatants in the English Civil Wars, but documents I read at the English National Archives this spring made me stop to acknowledge a trend of Dutch merchants loaning money to both king and Parliament, sometimes at the same time. Why would they support both sides of a war in this way, when it was likely that one or both sides would be unable to repay them?
Further research convinced me that the merchants did so because the financial and imperial privileges they could gain outweighed the losses they would incur. Their choice to invest in the English wars built on their experience investing in projects with the Swedish and English crowns, which included fen drainage, copper mining, and trading ventures around the world. The same strategy helps explain why some English and Dutch merchants invested in multiple companies, sometimes affiliated with different governments, that competed for trading rights in the same locations. The prize was the privileges they gained, which could range from trade monopolies to titles of nobility in new lands around the world. I found that the quest for these privileges eventually contributed to Dutch support of the royalist cause in England. I am looking forward to upcoming research trips in the US that will help me bring forward the North American elements of these financial and imperial relationships as I work to turn the dissertation into a book.
5. What are some of your favorite historical sources or archives that you’ve worked with, and why do they stand out to you?
I am so grateful to the Stadsarchief Amsterdam, the Stadsarchief Rotterdam, and the Zeeuws Archief for preserving and cataloging their early modern notarial records, and for digitizing many of them. Most of the evidence I have for Dutch loans to different groups in England comes from these collections. I was particularly excited to find a system of Dutch loans to the English crown moving through middlemen who farmed the English customs on tin. The loans were notarized as going to these Englishmen, so I didn't originally realize their final destination, but the amounts were so large, in the hundreds of thousands of guilders, or tens of thousands of pounds, that I kept coming back to them. Months later, I found the same men loaning similar sums of money to Charles I in the English treasury records. The Dutch notaries always recorded the interest rate of the loans in their books, so I was able to see that the middlemen were profiting from the system by receiving 8% in interest from the king, but only paying about 5% in interest in the Netherlands. These loans were part of a larger structure of Dutch money that helped Charles build the apparatus of his government and allowed him to continue to rule without Parliament throughout the 1630s.
Another of my favorite sources is the letters and proposals of the Dutchman Willem Usselincx, one of the early proponents of a Dutch West India Company. His writings are always fun because he was so blunt about his motivations. When the West India Company plans finally came to fruition, he wrote that they must "ensure... that all resolutions and actions aim to ensure that the benefit of the company, the prosperity of the republic and the harm of the King of Spain were promoted and held in recommendation together." He wanted the Netherlands to profit, and he wanted to hurt the king of Spain, and he was very clear that these goals could be met jointly by attacking the Spanish possessions in the West Indies. He was soon disappointed that the West India Company was not more aggressive in working toward these goals. The New York Public Library holds on microfilm a manuscript proposal of his for a new trading company, in which he suggested that the Netherlands could form the company with Sweden, and possibly also with France. They could then attack the West Indies, an urgent task because he feared that recent resource extraction had made Philip IV, the king of Spain, "now richer than ever." He cared about the Protestant cause and about making money, and he found these perfectly compatible with each other.
6. What are the broader implications of your research on early modern trans-imperial ventures for our understanding of global economic and political history?
Investigating the heavy Dutch investment in the English government and the joint Anglo-Dutch imperial ventures of the seventeenth century affect our ideas of sovereignty and empire in this period. Some Anglo-Dutch ventures worked closely with the governments of England and the Netherlands, while others were more independent, but all of them included an element of collaboration across states. The projects were not begun for the sake of the Netherlands or for the sake of England; their trans-imperial nature shows that their leaders and investors thought of empire not in national terms. Recent scholarship has debated the nature of empire at the beginning of the period of European expansion, particularly in England. Many point to the distance early English ventures kept from the crown, and their leadership by small groups of men, to differentiate them from projects like the British Raj in India in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Considering the multitude of trans-imperial ventures in the early modern period moves this discussion beyond national stories to a more global vision of empire. This research shows that theoretical conceptions of empire need to encompass these early forms of interconnected empire as well as later, more state-based ones. Early forms of imperialism were different from what people often picture when they think of "imperialism" or "colonialism" today, and we need to study them in order to understand fully the nature of empire.
7. How do you envision your research evolving in the next few years, and what new areas or questions are you interested in exploring?
I hope to expand from the Anglo-Dutch sphere and explore the interconnections between imperial ventures more broadly from the age of exploration onward. There is a lot of wonderful new research on the role of transnational or cosmopolitan figures who crossed boundaries between empires, often working with multiple different powers over the course of their lives. I would like to investigate the collaborations between different states and projects, which varied widely in scale. On the most official level, the Dutchman Willem Usselincx started the Swedish South Company in 1626 with Dutch funding and both Swedish and Dutch personnel; another Dutchman, Abraham Cabiljau, started the Swedish Shipping Company in 1629, with Dutch funding and personnel; and Dutch and Danish partners, including Louis de Geer, founded the Swedish Africa Company in 1649. At the same time, rulers in Spain, France, the Netherlands, England, and Courland claimed and distributed titles of nobility on the island of Tobago to assorted figures across empires. Much like itinerant projectors, figures like Isaac le Maire, François Caron, and Isaac de Rasieres traveled around Europe proposing trans-imperial ventures to different governments. And on the least official level, a community of Spanish, French, Dutch, and English privateers persisted on the island of Tortuga while it changed hands several times between states back in Europe. I would like to use company and merchant records to investigate what motivated the different kinds of trans-imperial ventures that began in the early modern period. My new project will explore why new trans-imperial projects continued to receive funding even after the development of the great trading companies.
Carolina Lopez-Ruiz, PhD - CISSR 24-25 Faculty Research Fellow
Interview by Tessa Webb
1. Your work has extensively explored the intersections between Greek and Northwest Semitic traditions. What initially drew you to study these cultural exchanges, and how has your approach evolved over the years?
I was trained as a classicist, but early on I felt the need to understand how the “classical” cultures (Greek and Roman) related to the rest of the Mediterranean, and how those broader cultural networks shaped what we see as “classical”. The world of early Greek and Phoenician settlement “abroad” provided a framework to explore these connections east and west, and the Phoenicians became a perfect locus to study the Mediterranean from a different perspective. Specifically, they break down the stark separation between Indo-European and Semitic groups, which is based on historical-linguistic rather than cultural and historical criteria.
2. Your research involves both textual and archaeological sources. How do you balance these different types of evidence in your work, and what challenges do you face in integrating them?
The issue of written sources is frustrating. Compared to the Greek world, we have very little written evidence from the Phoenicians, and what we have is usually mediated by Greek and Roman historians. We do have inscriptions (as the more direct testimony, in Phoenician language) but those are very formulaic and limited in content. So, basically, although I am trained in languages and literature, I have drawn more and more in archaeological and iconographic materials to complement the skewed picture we get from the written sources, in order to reconstruct the Phoenicians’ historic and cultural trajectory and impact.
3. Your recent monograph, Phoenicians and the Making of the Mediterranean, has received significant recognition. How has the reception of this work influenced your current research direction or your upcoming projects?
The success of the book among scholars of various disciplines (classics, Levantine archaeology, biblical studies, etc.) has boosted my enthusiasm in continuing to study the Phoenicians, as I can see how the topic serves to bring closer these disciplines, and also convinced that broad interest needs to be matched by more studies of these materials, both specialized and accessible.
4. With such an impressive array of accomplishments this year—including your monograph for Oxford University Press, the edited volume for Bloomsbury, and the Spanish translation of your book—how do you reflect on this period in your career, and what do you see as the next major milestone or challenge on the horizon?
Since I had been working on finishing several book-length projects simultaneously for the last years, I now feel I’ll have the space to delve into some side projects and also start developing my ideas for the next monograph, hopefully. I will also need to keep up with the results of our archaeological work in Malaga and see what presentations, publications, and collaborations emerge from that.
5. Are there any new directions or research areas you’re considering exploring as a result of your recent work?
One of the topics I’ve been meaning to explore in more depth is the role of Phoenician and Levantine people in the intellectual developments that we consider “classical”, including some philosophical trends and some modes of interpretation of mythology and religion (since I said our written sources are scarce and very mediated, you might guess this is a very challenging task, but I have my ideas).
6. Your forthcoming paper in Biblical Archaeology Review highlights your fieldwork and research on the Phoenicians. Can you share more about the key findings or insights from this research, and how you hope it will contribute to the broader discourse on Phoenician studies?
Yes! The site we have been excavating outside modern Malaga (Cerro del Villar) offers an exceptional opportunity to study a Phoenician settlement in a “horizontal” way. The foundations of the harbor town’s early phases, from the 8th to the 6th centuries BCE are very well preserved throughout a terrain of about eight hectares, so this is, right now, one of the best preserved early Phoenician sites in the Mediterranean. This means we have the potential to extract information about how a “colony” was established, ex novo, how they were organized, the development of their industrial, trading, and agricultural activities, perhaps the makeup of the initial group (did they come from Tyre? from some other Phoenician center in the Levant or even in the west? did these settlers include people from Cyprus, Sardinia, or other places along the way?) and, very importantly, how they coexisted with and drew on the local populations.
7. Could you provide more details about the themes or topics that will be covered in the October conference? As you prepare for the conference, what are you most excited to share or discuss with your peers?
Basically it will offer an overview of the state of our knowledge of these sorts of relations between Phoenicians and locals (and in some areas and phases also Greeks) in Iberia, showcasing the perspectives of experts who also lead important excavations in the region. An interesting aspect of the conference too is the addition of environmental topics, regarding exploitation of resources and adaptation to drastic changes in the ancient habitats, such as caused by inundations and other unpredictable events.
8. What advice would you give to young academics starting out in their research careers, when it comes to overcoming challenges and finding success in their field?
Follow your interests and read broadly to find what niches of knowledge you might be able to fit into or how you might create new ones. Try to combine specialized knowledge (whether it is linguistic, archaeological or other) with addressing large-scope questions that can interest researchers in other disciplines and broader readerships, and work across disciplines when you can (whether by engaging with them personally or through collaborations). The XXI century university and Scientific community and institutions (on which research funding also depends) are more and more inclined to support work whose relevance can be argued for and communicated across specialties.
Michael Albertus - CISSR 24-25, 2020-21, 2019-2020 Faculty Research Fellow
Interview by Tessa Webb
1. Your research spans various complex topics like political regime transitions, inequality, and land reform. How has your approach to these subjects evolved over the years? What initially inspired you to focus on the political conditions under which governments implement egalitarian reforms?
I was originally inspired by early fieldwork in Latin America, where I witnessed the promise of democracy falling short on material terms and wanted to understand why. That led me to investigate the historical track record of the reallocation of land in different countries. Over the years, I have come to understand that questions of inequality, democracy, and satisfaction with government are highly interrelated and I have sought to examine them from different angles.
2. You mentioned that conducting field research in places like South Africa and Patagonia has been particularly inspiring. Could you share any specific insights or experiences from these research trips that have shaped your understanding of land power and its societal implications?
One experience that was both eye opening and humbling was working with communities in the sugarcane region of northeastern South Africa. Land restitution is fundamental to these communities and has transformed livelihoods and paths of upward mobility. People are struggling with difficult issues and brutal legacies of the past apartheid era every day, and they are doing so with determination and grace.
3. Your upcoming book, "Land Power: Who Has It, Who Doesn't, and How That Determines the Fate of Societies," is set to be released in 2025. What key themes or arguments do you hope will resonate most with readers? Were there any challenges or surprises you encountered while writing this book?
I hope the book makes people recognize that we are all from the land, and many of us have roots in it that are very deep. I learned more about my own family past in immigration and serfdom. I also want people to understand that land has shaped modern society and its deepest problems — from gender inequality to racial hierarchy, poverty, and the environmental crisis — in profound ways, and that making good choices about how to use the land now can help address those problems.
4. You regularly contribute to public discourse through op-eds and other media. How do you balance the demands of academic research with the need to communicate complex ideas to a broader audience? What do you see as the role of scholars in public debates today?
Scholars dedicate their time and energy to developing deep expertise, and our public debates and public policies are richer if we share that expertise and apply it to the world around us. We can all play a role in our own ways.
5. As a professor and Deputy Dean, you play a significant role in mentoring students and young scholars. What advice would you give to those entering the field of political science, particularly those interested in the intersection of democracy, inequality, and conflict?
Keep an open mind! Take time to explore and see what captivates and fascinates you about the world. And then put that at the center of your study, and see where it takes you.
6. Have you recently shared your work or ideas through public platforms, such as podcasts, op-eds, interviews, or other media? If so, please provide details and links if available.
Yes, here's a recent op-ed of mine in the NT: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/29/opinion/international-world/venezuela-election-democracy-maduro.html. I have written a number of op-eds for popular media outlets based on my research.
7. Have you made any significant progress or reached milestones in your research in the past year that you would like to share?
My new book, "Land Power: Who Has It, Who Doesn't, and How That Determines the Fate of Societies" is done and scheduled for Jan 2025 publication with Basic Books.
8. What experiences or challenges have been particularly influential in shaping your research journey this past year? Are there any upcoming projects or goals you are particularly excited about?
Conducting field research in new sites like South Africa and Patagonia has been especially inspiring. I am excited to get the word out about my new book!
Rochelle Layla Terman, PhD - 2022-23 Book Workshop Fellow
Interview by Tessa Webb
1. Can you tell me a little about your academic journey and what initially drew you to political science and international relations?
My academic journey in political science and international relations began at the University of Chicago, where the first class I took was with John Mearsheimer, which significantly influenced my understanding of global politics. I also became involved with the Pozen Center for Human Rights, which led to a baccalaureate fellowship at a human rights organization. My passion for human rights, particularly issues of gender in the Muslim world, continued to guide my research. I later pursued my PhD at Berkeley, followed by a postdoc at Stanford, where I deepened my work in international relations.
2. How did your time at UC Berkeley and Stanford University influence your research interests and career path?
My time at UC Berkeley and Stanford University had a lasting impact on my research interests and career path. The Pozen Baccalaureate Fellowship led me to work for a human rights organization, which deepened my commitment to this area, and pursuing my Ph.D. at Berkeley further solidified my focus on international norms and advocacy. While my career has had less movement compared to others, which comes with the territory, I’ve found continuity to be more important in my path.
3. How has computational social science contributed to your research on international relations and human rights?
My journey into computational social science was somewhat unexpected. I didn’t anticipate moving toward quantitative approaches, since research on norms and human rights are generally qualitative. In fact, I didn’t take any statistics classes during my undergraduate years, and even when I entered grad school, I wasn’t planning to follow that path. It was something that happened almost by accident—I found myself in the right place at the right time. Before computational social science gained traction, I had a personal interest in programming and web development. As a side gig, I was a web developer, which led me to explore various computing languages and even teach them. These skills and learning experiences sparked new ideas that eventually converged with my research, even though they developed separately at first. I've realized that keeping an open mind is crucial—career paths aren’t always linear; what may seem like distractions now can often become valuable and pay dividends later.
4. What has been your experience as a faculty affiliate with various interdisciplinary centers at the University of Chicago?
As a faculty affiliate with various interdisciplinary interests at the University of Chicago, I’ve found these centers to be incredibly enriching. While not everyone focuses on quantitative methods, these centers provide communities of people with like interests, which I’ve found to be quite valuable for my own research.
5. What motivated you to explore the topic of international human rights and their relationship with shaming?
My motivation to explore the topic of international human rights and their relationship with shaming came from my experiences working for a human rights organization during grad school. Although shaming is a common tactic, I noticed a mismatch how it was represented in academic literature with my personal experience as a practitioner. This discrepancy led me to ask deeper questions about why shaming didn’t always work and the conditions under which it could be effective. In my research, I aim to complicate the distinction that political scientists and international relations scholars often make between norms and instrumentality. Shaming, like any norm enforcement or social pressure, occurs within the context of a relationship, both on an international and personal level.
6. What are the key messages you hope readers will take away from "The Geopolitics of Shaming"?
In "The Geopolitics of Shaming," I hope readers take away several key messages. First and foremost, I want them to derive genuine value from it. Additionally, one key point I emphasize is that political scientists often create a dichotomy between norms and instrumentality, but this perspective should be complicated. It’s crucial to highlight the interrelation between these concepts. Lastly, the book talks about how norm enforcement occurs within the context of relationships, so I encourage readers to adopt a more relational way of thinking about these dynamics.
7. Your book utilizes a wide range of evidence, including cross-national data, survey experiments, and case studies. How did you integrate these different methodologies to support your arguments?
The challenge for me was making the book coherent and read as one story, despite using such a wide range of methodologies. To integrate these different methodologies, I leveraged a suggestion from a workshop that said to have the last chapter include case studies to tie the parts together into a cohesive narrative. Additionally, my editor encouraged me to include anecdotes in the more quantitative chapters.
8. How do you see the role of non-governmental organizations and civil society in the process of human rights shaming and enforcement?
While my book primarily focuses on states, my initial interest in the topic actually emerged from my experiences with non-governmental organizations (NGOs). However, given the scope of the book, I couldn’t include everything, so I chose to focus on state actors, which is different from my dissertation work. Despite this, I still highlight the importance of civil society and NGOs in my recommendations in the conclusion, recognizing their crucial role in human rights.
9. What has the experience been like doing press, such as the Big Brains podcast, for your book? Do you enjoy this part of the process and exposing more people to your work who may otherwise not encounter it?
The experience of doing press, including the Big Brains podcast, has been interesting, but it came after a long publishing process. I submitted the manuscript back in 2021, received feedback in 2022, and finished the final revisions later that year. The book didn’t actually come out until October 2023, so by the time I started doing press, I hadn’t worked on the book in about a year. I had to reacquaint myself with the material and remind myself of what the arguments were. That said, I do enjoy this part of the process, particularly the challenge of communicating my research in a way that is accessible, which is something I practiced throughout the promotion.
10. What advice would you give to aspiring researchers and students interested in international relations and human rights?
My first piece of advice would be to read broadly; it facilitates creativity. Good ideas often occur at the intersection of different lines of thought, so the more you read broadly and bring these ideas together, the more the alchemy happens. Second, in a similar vein, I would encourage you to keep an open mind and pursue different opportunities. This open-mindedness and willingness to explore can lead to surprising and valuable insights in your work.
11. Are there any new projects or areas of research you are currently working on or planning to explore in the future?
I’m currently working on several computational social science projects that intersect with international relations and human rights. One of the key areas I’m exploring is the role of language in shaping the global understanding of human rights. I’m examining Google search results for human rights topics around the world, focusing on how language barriers can limit the reach of canonical organizations and their messaging. This paper is under review, and it’s part of a broader project that looks at the impact of language.