Congratulations to sociology professor Jonathan Rieder, who in recent weeks received fellowships from both the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the Sheila Biddle Ford Foundation to support his scholarship.
Chosen from a pool of over 3,100 applicants, Prof. Rieder is among a diverse group of 175 scholars, artists, and scientists receiving grants in the Guggenheim Foundation’s ninety-first annual competition for the United States and Canada.
As the recipient of the Sheila Biddle Ford Foundation fellowship, Prof. Rieder will spend the next academic year at Harvard University’s W.E.B. DuBois Research Institute, part of the Hutchins Center for African and African-American research. Fellows work in a range of fields and interests, including art and art history, Afro-Latin American research, education, hip-hop, and the African diaspora. Learn more about the fellowship program at the W.E.B DuBois Research Institute.
These generous fellowships will support Prof. Rieder’s work on his new book, Crossing Over: Black-White Encounters in the Transition from Rhythm and Blues to Soul and Rock. As part of his research, he will interview many key individuals in this particular music genre, from singers and musicians to record label executives. This research is reflected in seminar and lecture courses that Prof. Rieder currently teaches at Barnard, which consider music from spirituals and minstrelsy up through hip-hop and other contemporary genres through a sociological lens.
Prof Rieder joined Barnard’s faculty in 1990. He is affiliated with Barnard’s programs in American Studies, Jewish Studies, and Human Rights Studies. A member of the graduate faculty of Columbia University’s Sociology Department, he is also affiliated with the Columbia American Studies Department. He teaches courses on contemporary American culture and politics; unity and division in the United States; the sociology of culture, race and ethnicity; and American pluralism.