Hunter College Associate Professor of African History Jill Rosenthal has been selected by CUNY for a 2024 Wasser – Gross Award for Outstanding Research, the university announced.
The awards are named for two of the CUNY Academy’s founding members, Feliks Gross and Henry Wasser, and honor academically impressive assistant professors from all CUNY campuses. Each awardee presents their research in a talk as part of the Feliks Gross and Henry Wasser lecture series.
“I am thrilled and honored that the selection committee found my work compelling and look forward to taking part in the lecture series,” Rosenthal said.
Rosenthal’s research examines the history of migration, identity, and international aid in the African Great Lakes region, with a focus on the legacy of colonial borders. At Hunter, Rosenthal teaches courses on 19th- and 20th- century African history, refugees and the nation-state, and violence and healing.
Rosenthal’s book From Migrants to Refugees: The Politics of Aid along the Tanzania-Rwanda Border (Duke University Press), tells the history of how Rwandan migrants in a Tanzanian border district became considered either citizens or refugees as nation-state boundaries solidified in the wake of decolonization.
As local and national actors, refugees, and international officials all attempted to control the lives and futures of refugee groups, they contested the authority of the nation-state and the international refugee regime. This history, Rosenthal demonstrates, illuminates how tensions between state and international actors divided people who share a common history, culture, and language across national borders. It also shows humanitarian aid’s central role in decolonization and nation building.
Rosenthal, who came to Hunter in 2016, earned a PhD from Emory University in 2014. She was the William H. Bonsall Acting Assistant Professor of African History at Stanford University from 2014 to 2016.
