The Institute for the Study of Sexuality and Gender announces the winner of the 2024 Elaine Combs-Schilling Memorial Fellowship: Elya Assayag.
Elya Assayag is a history PhD candidate at Columbia University. She studies the social history of Moroccan women during the 20th century. Due to a lack of written sources by and about women, Elya's research uses diverse methodologies in addition to archival research, such as oral history and material culture analysis. At the center of her study stands Moroccan embroidery. This craft is used as a means to understand the shifts in knowledge transmission mechanisms and aesthetic trends among women. Besides trying to figure out her academic path, she volunteers with refugees and asylum seekers, and tries to do something useful with the law degree she obtained a few years ago.
The Elaine Combs-Schilling Memorial Fellowship, established to honor the memory of Elaine Combs-Schilling (1949-2016), Professor of Anthropology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, is awarded annually to an ISSG graduate student. The fellowship provides an opportunity to pursue summer archival research and travel in support of their doctoral work with a stipend of $2,000. Funding for the fellowship comes from the Elaine Combs-Schilling Memorial Fund.
