Dr Louise Hardwick has just returned from a Visiting Fellowship at Emory University, Atlanta, as part of her AHRC-funded research project into Joseph Zobel.

The Visiting Fellowship was crucial to Louise’s reframing of Zobel as an author whose importance transcends the Caribbean region: the issues of race, diversity and post-slavery identity which are central to his work find particular resonance in the American South.

Emory University is recognized internationally for its outstanding liberal arts colleges, graduate and professional schools, and its scholars and experts generate more than $572 million in research funding annually, while also maintaining a traditional emphasis on teaching. The city of Atlanta is itself an important location for the study of civil and human rights, and is the birthplace of Martin Luther King.

At Emory, Louise worked alongside experts in African American Studies and Caribbean Studies. She met with graduate students, and taught classes on Joseph Zobel and Francophone Caribbean literature. Louise also gave a research seminar on Zobel’s publication Laghia de la mort, and continued to draft her forthcoming monograph on Zobel.

While in Atlanta, Louise also collaborated with colleagues at Georgia Institute of Technology, a leading research and teaching institute, where she was invited to give classes and a research seminar at the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts which had just celebrated its 125th Anniversary.