Sharon
Gmelch, professor of anthropology, has received a Fulbright Fellowship to
be a lecturer and researcher in the fall of 2001 at the University of
Ireland in Maynooth, west of Dublin.
Gmelch said she expects to teach a graduate-level
seminar for third-year anthropology majors, either in tourism or Irish
Travellers and ethnicity.
She expects her research will focus on the itinerants, a
group she first studied about 30 years ago. That work produced two books: Tinkers
and Travellers (1975), which won “Book of the Year” by the
Irish Book Publishers Association, and Nan: The Life of an Irish
Traveling Woman (1986), a finalist for the American Association of
Anthropology's Margaret Mead Award.
Much has changed for the Travellers since her original
work, said Gmelch. The Irish economy is stronger, thanks in part to the
European Union, and Travellers who once used horse and wagon now have cars
and trailers. The group is more integrated into the rest of the Irish
community. Also, they are more politically aware and organized, and they
have a much stronger sense of ethnic identity.
Teresa Meade, associate professor of history, recently
received a Fulbright to teach next year at several universities in Tokyo,
Japan.