Torch Prize Fellows to Pursue Greater ‘Global Understanding’

By James Devitt

    Under apartheid, South Africa’s criminal justice system was notoriously brutal and prosecutions were often politically motivated. But how much have things changed after the country moved to a democracy?

      South Africa native Gail Super, a graduate student in NYU’s Law and Society program, will address this question as a new recipient of a Torch Prize Fellowship, which supports dissertation research outside of the United States for the most promising doctoral students in the Graduate School of Arts and Science (GSAS). Super, who holds a master’s degree in criminology from the London School of Economics, will spend the year in South Africa examining parliamentary debates, legislative activity, and news coverage from 1976 to 2004 in exploring how the country’s transition to democracy has changed, if at all, its criminal justice system.

      This year’s other Torch Prize Fellowship recipients are Rania Jawad, a GSAS doctoral candidate in the Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, and Jan Padios, a GSAS doctoral candidate in NYU’s American studies program.

      Jawad will examine the theater activity of Palestinian citizens of Israel from 1948 to the present in an effort to enhance understanding of social politics and identity formation, with the theater serving to chart the complex cultural interactions between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs within Israeli society. Jawad’s research will include interviews, site visits, and archival research in Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jaffa, and Nazareth.

      Padios, the child of Filipino immigrants, will study the way that globalization has affected Filipino workers, businesses, and the Philippine state. In conducting research in the Philippines, Padios will examine governmental policies, strategies used by American and Philippine companies to market products and services to Filipino workers, and these workers’ consumption practices.

      The program is funded by NYU alumnus and Faculty of Arts and Science Board of Overseers member Ronald S. Katz, a partner in the national law firm Manatt, Phelps, and Phillips, and his wife, Elizabeth Roth, partner at GCA Law Partners, LLP. Katz was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship when he graduated from NYU’s University Heights campus in 1967.

      “Ron Katz and Libby Roth are exemplary University citizens,” said GSAS Dean Catharine Stimpson. “Because of them, our doctoral students can become Torch Fellows and make fresh contributions to research and global understanding.”

      The finalists this year were chosen by an interdisciplinary committee of NYU faculty members. The selection of fellows was then made by Stimpson in consultation with an advisory committee composed of the following: Global Distinguished Professor Breyten Breytenbach; Stephen Roach, a GSAS alumnus and chief of Morgan Stanley in Asia; and Natalie Hahn, a consultant on international educational programming who worked with the United Nations for more than 30 years and now runs her own non-profit agency.

      The fellowships, which include a $22,000 stipend, will take place during the 2008-09 academic year. In addition, the local institutions hosting the fellows each receive a $500 honorarium, recognizing their support of and contribution to each fellow’s research. NYU’s three fellows are part of a program designed to become a national competition for 20 prize fellowships in future years.

      For more information on the Torch Prize Fellowships, call 212-998-8060, or email torch.fellowships@nyu.edu.

 

GSAS Dean Catharine Stimpson, left, with doctoral candidate and
Torch Prize fellow Jan Padios.