Spruill Announcement

Dr. Thomas Lekan

University of South Carolina historian awarded prestigious fellowship at National Humanities Center in Chapel Hill, NC

Department historian Thomas Lekan has won a prestigious fellowship to conduct research at the National Humanities Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina for his work on Green Tourism: Consumption and Conservation in Twentieth-Century Germany. Professor Lekan has already published extensively on German environmental and conservation history including his book Imagining the Nation in Nature: Landscape Preservation and German Identity, 1885-1945 (Harvard University Press, 2004) and, more recently, essays in the Journal of Modern History and elsewhere.

The National Humanities Center is the only major independent American institute for advanced study in all fields of the humanities. It brings together outstanding scholars from across the United States and throughout the world It provides a national focus for the best work in the liberal arts, drawing attention to the enduring value of ancient and modern history, language and literature, ethical and moral reflection, artistic and cultural traditions, and critical thought in every area of humanistic investigation. By encouraging excellence in scholarship, the Center seeks to insure the continuing strength of the liberal arts and to affirm the importance of the humanities in American life.

Professor Lekan arrived at the University of South Carolina in 1999 from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Since then, he has played a major role in advancing the department’s profile in European history and has been particularly active in the University’s multidisciplinary School of the Environment.