PA333/10
Two outstanding academics who have made "a substantial and recognised contribution to their field of study" have received prestigious awards from the Leverhulme Trust.
Professor Vanessa Munro and Dr Celeste-Marie Bernier, of The University of Nottingham, have each been awarded 2010 Philip Leverhulme Prizes for the excellence of their research.
Professor Munro’s work focuses on feminist legal theory, while Dr Bernier’s research is in the area of African-American art history.
Click here for full story
The prizes, with a research funding value of £70,000 each, are awarded to outstanding young scholars who have made a substantial and recognised contribution to their particular field of study, who are recognised at an international level, and whose future contributions are held to be of correspondingly high promise.
The prizes commemorate the contribution to the work of the Trust made by Philip Leverhulme, the Third Viscount Leverhulme and grandson of the Founder.
Professor Munro, of the University’s School of Law, has an international reputation for scholarship in the areas of feminist legal theory in general, and sexual offences law and policy in particular. To date, she has carried out a number of innovative research studies exploring penal and popular responses to sexual violence against women.
These have included projects designed to examine the translation of policies on prostitution and sex trafficking into practice in several national jurisdictions, as well as projects designed to uncover — through the use of mock trial simulations — the complex processes of jury deliberation in rape cases, particularly in relation to jurors’ assessments of consent and credibility.
With the Leverhulme Prize funds, Professor Munro will develop further her work on sexual offences law, using a combination of feminist theoretical analysis and pioneering empirical investigation.
Professor Munro said: “I am delighted to have been awarded this prestigious prize. I am extremely grateful to the Leverhulme Trust for the opportunity which this will offer to further explore some of the inter-connections between the issues of consent, credibility, violence, and vulnerability that have informed my work across the different contexts of rape, prostitution and sex trafficking so far.”
Dr Bernier is Associate Professor of American Literature in the School of American and Canadian Studies, and Deputy Director of the Institute for the Study of Slavery at Nottingham. She is currently also a Non-Residential Fellow at the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, Harvard University, as well as an incoming Associate Editor of the Journal of American Studies (Cambridge University Press).
Working in the related fields of African-American art history, Slavery Studies and American Studies, her recent publications trace artistic and political developments over a 200-year period by examining early daguerreotypes and photographs, paintings, ceramics, quilts, sculpture, murals and mixed-media installations, among many other forms. By creating new ways of interpreting black art production, and examining neglected artists and artworks, she has broken new ground with her research.
Using funds from the Leverhulme Prize, Dr Bernier will be researching and writing a new book — “The Slave Ship Imprint”: Representing Slavery in Fifty Years of African American and Black British Visual Arts 1960-2010 — that will examine the ways in which contemporary artists address the difficult legacies of slavery in their work by examining issues of memorialisation, history, representation and the body.
Dr Bernier said: “This is a wonderful opportunity and an inspirational privilege. I am delighted to receive this award which will make it possible for me to develop my research in exciting new ways.”
— Ends —
Notes to editors:
The Leverhulme Trust was established in 1925 under the Will of the first Viscount Leverhulme. It is one of the largest all-subject providers of research funding in the UK, distributing funds of some £50 million every year. For further information about the schemes that the Leverhulme Trust fund visit their website at www.leverhulme.ac.uk
The University of Nottingham, described by The Times as “the nearest Britain has to a truly global university”, has award-winning campuses in the United Kingdom, China and Malaysia. It is ranked in the UK's Top 10 and the World's Top 75 universities by the Shanghai Jiao Tong (SJTU) and the QS World University Rankings.
The University is committed to providing a truly international education for its 39,000 students, producing world-leading research and benefiting the communities around its campuses in the UK and Asia.
More than 90 per cent of research at The University of Nottingham is of international quality, according to the most recent Research Assessment Exercise, with almost 60 per cent of all research defined as ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’. Research Fortnight analysis of RAE 2008 ranked the University 7th in the UK by research power.
The University’s vision is to be recognised around the world for its signature contributions, especially in global food security, energy & sustainability, and health.
More news from the University at: www.nottingham.ac.uk/news
Facts and figures at:
www.nottingham.ac.uk/about/facts/factsandfigures.aspx