The Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change is pleased to announce that the University of Memphis awarded Hooks Scholar in Residence, Andre E. Johnson a University Research Fellowship.

The newly created fellowship is for three years and is designed to award faculty members for their “outstanding contributions to the University’s educational, research, outreach, and service missions.” According to the University of Memphis Provost Tom Nenon, the professorship, “recognizes some of the University’s outstanding researchers across a range of disciplines.” According to Nenon, the university selected the awardees for their “success in bringing externally funded research grants to our University,” and being “preeminent scholars and performers whose work brings significant recognition to the University in other ways.”

Dr. Johnson plans to use the funds associated with the fellowship to assist him in his continued partnership with graduate students in his department that study at the intersection of rhetoric, race, and religion and the history of African American rhetoric and public address. According to Dr. Johnson, this will also include additional conference travel stipends and publishing opportunities for graduate students.

Dr. Johnson is an Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Media Studies in the Department of Communication and Film and is the author of No Future in This Country: The Prophetic Pessimism of Bishop Henry McNeal Turner.

See the announcement here.