Development Fellowships

Welcome


Since its founding in 1925, the Institute of Current World Affairs has provided more than 150 young men and women with long-term fellowships in countries throughout the world. They have immersed themselves in foreign cultures, mastered languages, and gained deep national and regional understanding, while pursuing study programs of their own design for at least two years. The Institute aims to foster the growth of such world citizens, who return to the United States to share what they have learned.

Institute fellows have been teachers, journalists, archeologists, composers, physicians, economists, business leaders, foresters, artists, political scientists, farmers, chemists, playwrights, bankers, city planners, and novelists. They have gone on to excel in these and other fields, armed with a wealth of experience and knowledge gained during their immersion abroad.

Our fellowship program continues to thrive, just as the need for deep understanding of foreign cultures and political systems grows ever more obvious. This website provides information about our purpose, history, fellowship opportunities, application procedures and more.

The Institute of Current World Affairs is a 501(c)(3) exempt operating foundation, supported by contributions from like-minded individuals and foundations. [about us]

From the Archive



‘Orange Glazed Duck’ by Pakistani installation artist Aysha Adil, 2002


“Aysha’s installation forces the viewer to confront what she calls the ‘packaging and commercialization of the Pakistani bride… The selection process in an arranged marriage is a lot like selecting a bangan for cooking. The slightest difference of shape, color, size makes all the difference on which bangan will make the best curry.’ In a similar vein, Orange Glazed Duck draws a parallel between garnishing a duck and decorating a bride.”


—Pakistan Fellow Leena Khan

...read newsletter

 

Current Fellows
and their Area of Interest

Elena Agarkova • RUSSIA • May 2008 -  2010

Elena will be living in Siberia, studying management of natural resources and the relationship between Siberia's natural riches and its people. Previously, Elena was a Legal Fellow at the University of Washington's School of Law, at the Berman Environmental Law Clinic. She has clerked for Honorable Cynthia M. Rufe of the federal district court in Philadelphia, and has practiced commercial litigation at the New York office of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP. Elena was born in Moscow, Russia, and has volunteered for environmental non-profits in the Lake Baikal region of Siberia. She graduated from Georgetown University Law Center in 2001, and has received a bachelor's degree in political science from Barnard College.

Pooja Bhatia • HAITI • September 2008 -  2010

Pooja attended Harvard as an undergraduate, and then worked for the Wall Street Journal for a few years. She graduated from Harvard Law School. She was appointed Harvard Law School Satter Human Rights Fellow in 2007 and worked as an attorney with the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux, which advocates and litigates on behalf of Haiti’s poor. As an ICWA Fellow, Pooja will explore Haiti more deeply and write more broadly about the country.

Eve Fairbanks • SOUTH AFRICA • May 2009 -  2011

Eve is a New Republic staff writer interested in character and in how individuals fit themselves into new or changing societies. Through that lens, she will be writing about medicine and politics in the new South Africa. At the New Republic, she covered the first Democratic Congress since 1992 and the 2008 presidential race; her book reviews have also appeared in The New York Times. She graduated with a degree in political science from Yale, where she also studied music.

Ezra Fieser • GUATEMALA • January 2008 -  2010

Ezra is interested in economic and political changes in Central America. He is an ICWA fellow living in Guatemala where he will write about the country’s rapidly changing economic structure and the effects on its politics, culture and people. He was formerly the deputy city editor for The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal, a staff writer for Springfield (Mass.) Republican and a Pulliam Fellow at The Arizona Republic. He is a graduate of Emerson College in Boston.

Suzy Hansen • TURKEY • April 2007 - September 2009

Suzy will be writing about politics and religion in Turkey. A former editor at the New York Observer, her work has also appeared in Salon, the New York Times Book Review, the Nation, and other publications. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1999.

Cecilia Kline • CENTRAL AMERICA • January 2009 -  2011

Cecilia´s passion is hanging out with kids on the streets and in juvenile prisons learning about ways youth experience and survive violence. She is currently in Honduras collaborating with different NGOs pursuing her interest in the causes and innovative outreach methods to at-risk youth, gangs and violence which she will continue in various Central American cities. She has worked internationally with detained youth since college, integrating legal and social influences, backed by her studies in Psychology and Sociology at Georgetown, degree in Child Law from Loyola and masters in Social Service from University of Chicago.

Derek Mitchell • INDIA • September 2007 - August 2009

Derek will be exploring the social and cultural impact of economic change in India. Previously, he was a Fulbright scholar in India at the Gandhi Peace Foundation. He has worked as a foreign policy research coordinator at George Washington University's Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies and as a political organizer in New Hampshire. Derek graduated with a degree in religion from Columbia University.

Raphael Soifer • BRAZIL • March 2007 -  2009

An actor, director, playwright, musician and theatre educator, Raphi Soifer is a Donors’ Fellow studying, as a participant and observer, the relationship between the arts and social change in communities throughout Brazil. He has worked as a performer and director in the United States and Brazil, and has taught performance to prisoners and underprivileged youth through People’s Palace Projects in Rio de Janeiro and Community Works in San Francisco. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Theatre Studies and Anthropology from Yale University.



Former Fellow Spotlight

Tyrone Turner

Tyrone TurnerTyrone and his wife, Susan Sterner, were Fellows based in Brazil from 1998 through 2000. Tyrone took photographs and wrote about Brazil’s youth, poverty, culture, and religion. His documentation of glue-addicted street kids in the northeastern city of Recife was honored in the 2001 Pictures of the Year competition. Their newsletters are available in our archive.

Since the fellowship, Tyrone and his family have lived in Arlington, VA. He is a freelance photographer who has traveled extensively shooting stories focusing on social and environmental issues. In 2003, the Soros Foundation awarded him a Justice Media Fellowship to photograph the lives of youths incarcerated in the adult correctional system. For the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, he has documented families and health around the United States.

As a contributing photographer for National Geographic Magazine, he has produced stories on the disappearing wetlands of Louisiana (October, 2004); increasing hurricane threats (August, 2005); the coasts of the United States (July, 2006); a special issue on hurricane Katrina (Fall 2005); and the rebuilding of New Orleans (August, 2007).

National GeographicMost recently, Tyrone shot the cover story on energy efficiency and conservation for National Geographic (March, 2009). For the story, he used a thermal imaging camera in order to explore the world of energy loss, from houses and cars to appliances and household electrical plugs. The link to the Nat Geo website is: ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/03/energy-conservation/miller-text.

Tyrone will return to Brazil this year for National Geographic as part of a story on the legacy of slavery in the Americas.

Tyrone holds a BA in International Relations and an MA in Comparative Politics from Georgetown University. He is a project mentor for the photojournalism program at the Corcoran School of Art + Design and a fellow with the News Literacy Project.

See his photos at: www.tyronefoto.com.

 


Through the eyes and ears of its fellows, the Institute has collected 83 years of world history, in the form of newsletters submitted as part of the fellowships. Archive


NEW BOOKS

 

The Great Gamble

By Gregory Feifer
Former Fellow
Russia • 2000-2002

Recently released, “The Great Gamble” is available using the link below. Gregory is National Public Radio’s Moscow correspondent. He was educated at Harvard University and lives in Moscow with his wife, Elizabeth and son Sebastian.


The Great Gamble
The Soviet War in Afghanistan
By Gregory Feifer

The Soviet war in Afghanistan was a grueling debacle that has striking lessons for the twenty-first century. In The Great Gamble, Gregory Feifer examines the conflict from the perspective of the soldiers on the ground. During the last years of the Cold War, the Soviet Union sent some of its most elite troops to unfamiliar lands in Central Asia to fight a vaguely defined enemy, which eventually defeated their superior numbers with unconventional tactics. Although the Soviet leadership initially saw the invasion as a victory, many Russian soldiers came to view the war as a demoralizing and devastating defeat, the consequences of which had a substantial impact on the Soviet Union and its collapse.

Feifer’s extensive research includes eye-opening interviews with participants from both sides of the conflict. In gripping detail, he vividly depicts the invasion of a volatile country that no power has ever successfully conquered. Parallels between the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq are impossible to ignore—both conflicts were waged amid vague ideological rhetoric about freedom. Both were roundly condemned by the outside world for trying to impose their favored forms of government on countries with very different ways of life. And both seem destined to end on uncertain terms.

A groundbreaking account seen through the eyes of the men who fought it, The Great Gamble tells an unforgettable story full of drama, action, and political intrigue whose relevance in our own time is greater than ever.

Available January 6, 2009 HarperCollinsPublishers Hardcover: $27.99 ISBN: 9870061143182

browseinside.harpercollins.com

 

A Fistful of Diamonds

By John B. Robinson
Former Fellow
Madagascar • 1996-1998

“A Fistful of Diamonds” is available using the link below. John graduated from Harvard University in 1991 and headed straight to Africa to pursue writing. Along the way he worked as a guide on Mount Kilimanjaro, bought, sold and traded rare gems, and taught English in out-of-the-way places. He currently lives in Portland, Maine.

A Fistful of Diamonds
Gemstone Thrillers
By John B. Robinson

A suite of priceless diamonds surfaces in Central Africa. Fast-talking gem expert Lonny Cushman wants them. As cover, he chaperones a young seminarian to Rwanda in search of her missing father. Once there, Lonny chases the diamonds through the killing fields of the Congo. Survival depends on negotiating the bloody machinery that benefits from the conflict diamond trade—Islamic jihadis, corrupt army officers, Israeli diamantaires, and Ukrainian arms dealers. Can he save himself, the diamonds, and the seminarian from a terrible end?

McBooks Press, Inc.
ISBN-13: 9781590131503

www.mcbooks.com/bookstore

 

Yugoslavia — Oblique Insights and Observations

By Dennison Rusinow
Former Fellow
Austria and Adriatic Europe (1958-63)

Yugoslavia—Oblique Insights and Observations
By Dennison Rusinow, Edited by Gale Stokes

"Yugoslavia—Oblique Insights and Observations" by Dennison Rusinow, Essays selected and edited by Gale Stokes, Pittsburgh UP '08 paperback, $27.95, 384 pages, ISBN #0822960109. Index, source notes, no bibliography or illustrations.

As a long-time resident of Yugoslavia during the Cold War years, journalist/historian Dennison Rusinow had a bird's eye seat to view Marshal Josip Broz Tito trying to fit his square hybrid socialist peg into the Soviet Union's round hole.

Essays on a variety of topics explore "the first American-style supermarket and its challenge to traditional outdoor markets; the lessons of a Serbian holiday feast (Slava); the resignation of Vice President Aleksandar Rankovic; the Croation political purge of 1971; ethnic divides and the rise of nationalism throughout the country; the tension between conservative and liberal forces in Yugoslav politics; and the student revolt at Belgrade University in 1968.

Rusinow was a research professor at the University Center for International Studies and emeritus professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh and has authored five books. Editor Stokes is Professor of History Emeritus at Rice University.

 

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