Michele Navakas receives Fulbright Danish Distinguished Scholar Award
She is the second Miami University faculty member since 2022 to receive a Distinguished Fulbright Scholar award
Michele Navakas receives Fulbright Danish Distinguished Scholar Award
Michele Navakas, professor of English at Miami University, has received the Fulbright Danish Distinguished Scholar Award in American Studies for the 2024-2025 academic year.
She will be hosted by the University of Southern Denmark’s Center for American Studies, which is the largest American Studies center in Scandinavia, for eight months beginning in September.
“Denmark is a global front-runner in the green transition,” Navakas said, “so this is an amazing opportunity for me as a scholar of American literature who focuses on the important role that literature and literary study have played in the history of environmentalism, up to and including present-day climate knowledge and action.”
Navakas is the author of two books, “Coral Lives: Literature, Labor, and the Making of America” (Princeton University Press, 2023) and “Liquid Landscape: Geography and Settlement at the Edge of Early America” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018).
Her distinguished scholar award is primarily a research fellowship that she received in recognition and support of the new book she is working on called “Rachel Carson Reading.”
Navakas said the book focuses on the life and work of American environmentalist Rachel Carson (1907-1964), whose 1962 environmental science book, “Silent Spring,” showed the dangers of using pesticides carelessly and was a landmark in the development of the modern environmental movement.
Navakas’ book will show how some of Carson’s “most enduring insights about ecology would not have been possible without her lifelong reading of complex, imaginative literature — novels like ‘Moby-Dick,’ nature writing like ‘Walden,’ and creative essays by Emerson and others.”
Regarding the fellowship, Navakas said, “I'll spend most of my time there continuing to write the book and giving talks or lectures as the project develops. This is an incredible chance to share and workshop my writing with international audiences of scholars in my field, plus new groups of undergraduate and graduate students from many countries since the University of Southern Denmark hosts faculty and students from across the world.”
She added, “The book ultimately draws on Carson's life and work to make the case that literature is indispensable to environmental knowledge and action — which means that we simply cannot afford to continue defunding the study of literature in an era of climate crisis.”
Miami’s faculty and staff history with Fulbright
Karla Guinigundo, director of Global Partnerships at Miami, said the Distinguished Scholar and Chair awards are among the more competitive of the Fulbright Scholar Awards.
Lisa Ellram, University Distinguished Professor and James Evan Rees Distinguished Professor of Supply Chain Management, received the Distinguished Chair Award in 2022 and spent spring 2023 at the Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki, Finland.
“To have two Miami faculty recognized with Distinguished Fulbright Awards in the past several years is notable,” Guinigundo said.
Fulbright U.S. Scholars are faculty, researchers, administrators, and established professionals teaching or conducting research in affiliation with institutes abroad.
Miami faculty and staff have received 93 Fulbright awards since the program was created in 1946, including 21 since 2010, according to records.
"Fulbright Scholar and Specialist Awards provide a unique source of support that enable faculty to pursue research, teaching, or project collaborations abroad in more than 135 countries,” Guinigundo said.
This is the latest fellowship for Navakas, who is co-director of the Literature Program, an affiliate of American Studies and an affiliate of the Institute for the Environment and Sustainability at Miami.
In recent years, she received a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship in 2017-2018, a Rachel Carson Center Fellowship in 2021, an Altman Fellowship at the Miami University Humanities Center in 2023-2024, and a Yale Beinecke Library Short-Term Research Fellowship this summer.
She’s looking forward to going to Denmark next year.
“I'm overjoyed to have this chance to see what life is like in a country that takes climate change seriously and makes basic ecological literacy a central part of civic life and education. And I can't wait to see what kinds of lessons I can take with me and bring back into the classroom — and the broader Miami and Oxford communities — on my return,” she said.
“The Fulbright is all about fostering new synergies between institutions, and I'm honored to be part of that.”
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