History professor receives $6,000 grant for her studies

Ashli White, a University of Miami assistant professor of history, can now further pursue her study of the French and Haitian revolutions after receiving a $6,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

NEH recently awarded $17 million worth of grants throughout the United States to fund 208 humanities projects, including White’s.

She was one of two UM professors who were considered for a grant from the NEH.

“I was excited because this means I can go and do really crucial research for this next book I’m working on,” White said. “I was thrilled. It was a great email to receive.”

NEH is an independent federal agency that was founded in 1965 and supports research for scholars studying different fields.

The funding awarded by the agency supports various projects that the winners are working on.

White’s research will be featured in a new book that focuses on the material culture that is associated with periods of revolution. Material culture is the study of the relationship between society and objects.

For her first book, she researched the impact of the Haitian revolution on the early United States.

To further her research for her second book, White plans to use the grant to travel to Paris. She hopes to better understand the connections among past revolutions.

White plans to stay in Paris for two months to research well-known museums and archives collections.

The main focus of White’s study is to find how objects, such as printed textiles or life-size wax figures, came from abroad to help teach people about the revolution.

“The research I plan to do in Paris will be great because they have excellent archival and museum collections,” White said. “I use these to help find out how objects were made, disseminated and consumed.”