RAI student Jane Dinwoodie awarded dissertation fellowship at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies

Jane Dinwoodie, a D.Phil. candidate in American History, has been awarded a dissertation fellowship at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies for the 2016-17 academic year.

Based at the University of Pennsylvania, the McNeil Center facilitates scholarly inquiry into the histories and cultures of North America in the Atlantic world before 1850. The MCEAS is one of the world's most renowned centres for the study of early America, and is home to a large, interdisciplinary community of scholars who participate regularly in a rich programme of seminars, workshops, and conferences. Fellows also benefit from the centre's close proximity to Philadelphia's varied archival resources, ranging from the American Philosophical Society to the Library Company of Philadelphia.

During her fellowship term, Jane hopes to complete her doctoral dissertation, entitled  'Beyond Removal: Indians, States, and Sovereignties in the American South, c.1812-1860'. This project focuses on the many indigenous Southerners who managed to avoid federal removal attempts and remain within the region following the 1830s. By ranging across the region and its polities, it provides the first account of non-removal as a massive cross-regional phenomenon which affected not only indigenous Southerners, but also American officials, local residents, and continental dynamics of sovereignty, state development, and empire.