Four Ohio State doctoral candidates have collectively earned more than $180,000 through the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad grants.

Of the four candidates, three came from OSU’s Department of History and one from OSU’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures.

Cameron Jones, Catalina Hunt and Ian Lanzillotti were the Department of History’s doctoral candidates. Benjamin Gatling was from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures.

The four are all going in different directions.

Gatling is going to Tajikistan for one year, which culminates four years of work starting in 2006. Tajikistan, between northwestern Afghanistan and northeastern China, was part of the former Persian Empire and the Soviet Union.

He will research classical Persian poetry as it relates to a Tajikistani ethnic group’s rituals and history.

Gatling’s dissertation is called “Poetry, Power, and Pedagogy: Sufi Ritual in Tajikistan.”

The grant required that Jones, Hunt, Lanzillotti and Gatling write a grant proposal and do research out of the country in a foreign language, Gatling said.

Hunt will spend 10 months in Turkey and Romania.

She will research the Dobruca region of Eastern Europe in the context of being part of the Ottoman Empire, the Romanian nation and a new frontier.

Her research focuses on two of Dobruca’s Turkish ethnic groups in a historical context.

Hunt’s dissertation is called “Changing Identities at the Fringes of the Late Ottoman Empire: The Turks and Tatars of Dobruca, 1839 through 1914.”

Lanzillotti said earning the award is the result of years of work.

“It’s a tremendous honor,” he said. “At least in my field, this is the most prestigious of all the dissertation research awards out there.”

He will travel to Russia for nine months to research the roles of states in creating a nationality, while taking history and ethnicity into consideration. His research is primarily on the Kabardino-Balkaria, part of the north Caucasus region of northeastern Russia.

The research is for his dissertation, “Ethno-Nationalism and Interethnic Relations in the North Caucasus: Kabardino-Balkaria, 1858 through 1991.”

Lanzillotti said he wanted to thank the Department of History for all its help during his two years at OSU.

“I look forward to the opportunity of representing OSU, nationally and globally, while conducting my research,” Lanzillotti said.

Jones will be spending six months in Peru and six months in Spain.
He will be researching the Spanish Empire in Peru, particularly the role of religion.

Jones’ dissertation is called “The Missionaries of Santa Rosa de Ocopa on the Frontiers of Bourbon Peru, 1700 through 1824.”

The application deadline was Nov. 16, and Jones started working on it during the summer. The doctoral candidates were notified about the selection decisions on April 28, Jones said.

Of the five who applied from OSU, four received grants, said Joanna Kukielka-Blaser, project director for the Fulbright-Hays Program.

Nationally, hundreds of doctoral candidates applied for the award, and the Department of Education only awards about 145, Kukielka-Blaser said.

Acceptance criteria are evaluated on a 105-point scale and are based on the quality of the proposed project and qualifications of the applicant.

The Fulbright-Hays program is more than 50 years old.

During the Cold War, the U.S. started paying to establish foreign language and area studies programs at U.S. universities, Kukielka-Blaser said.

Authorized under the National Defense Education Act of 1958, the program is run by the U.S. Department of Education and is different from the U.S. Department of State’s Fulbright program.

Kukielka-Blaser said Fulbright-Hays’ goal is to create a better international education by focusing on foreign language.