Third-year History student Travis Knoll has won a Religions and Public Life Graduate Scholarship, $1500, for international research this year. He will also participate in an interdisciplinary monthly working group with other students studying religion and its role in society. The theme for the competition this year is Minorities and Diasporas.
Travis is developing a dissertation project tracing the trajectory of Brazilian Liberation Theology since 1976 and its embrace of Brazilian black movements, specifically through mutual efforts to promote ethno-racial affirmative action policies in Brazilian public and higher education. This money will pay for travel to Brasilia to research in the Brazilian Conference of Catholic Bishops' archives on its role in the recent development of laws addressing racial justice and education access.
He currently serves as project manager for the Duke Bass Connections’ “Cost of Opportunity” project. This international research collaboration analyzes the role Brazilian secondary and higher education plays in the social mobility of historically disadvantaged populations.
History
