Department Blog

Outstanding Dissertation Fellowship Award - Brittany Kowalski

The Department of Sociology & Anthropology at West Virginia University stands in solidarity with our Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander (AAPI) students, faculty, staff, and communities and denounces the anti-AAPI violence and hate occurring in the United States and globally.

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The Marshall Scholarship is a nationally competitive scholarship that funds two years of graduate school at universities in the UK. In order to apply for the scholarship, students’ universities need to interview and endorse them.

1. What is your title at WVU, what do you research, and what led you to the field?

 As faculty who study and teach on the subjects related to inequality and crime, community, and social justice, we join all of those who are sickened, angered, and heartbroken by the murder of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police. It has long been our mission to explain how incidents like these--including the racism-fueled deaths of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor--are not outliers but are part of the way our society operates. This form of bigoted, state-sponsored violence is deeply rooted in our country’s history and continues to manifest in our institutions. Those of us in privileged positions cannot be silent about the dangerous realities of life for black and brown Americans. All of us must take a stand and act in ways that disrupt and dismantle these systems of oppression. This is why we support the protests and all of those who are bravely marching in cities and towns throughout the country. 

What does your research explore?

Professors Daniel Renfrew and Genesis M. Snyder are featured in the December 2016 edition of City & Society. They co-edited a special journal section representing critical anthropological examinations of the ways race(d) subjects, categorizations and ideologies are mobilized and translated across borders.