Courtesy of Itamar Dotan Katz
Ali Shrago-Spechler, BFA Painting ‘11, has received a Fulbright U.S. Student Program award for the 2020-2021 academic year from the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.
She will travel to Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe (HfG) in Germany to conduct research on the German Landscapes of Memory and Erinnerungskultur (“Remembrance Culture”). Using the political and theatrical Thingspiele movement of the 1930s and its former venues as the framework for investigation, her research will culminate in a site-specific performance series produced in collaboration with German archivists, artists, and academics, and a Period Room installation that will survey the commodification and transformation of cultural objects and places in Karlsruhe.
Shrago-Spechler is one of more than 2,100 U.S. citizens who will study, conduct research, and teach abroad for the 2020-2021 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. Recipients of Fulbright awards are selected on the basis of academic and professional achievement, as well as their record of service and leadership potential in their respective fields.
Since it was established in 1946, the Fulbright Program has given thousands of students, scholars, teachers, artists, and professionals of all backgrounds and fields the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas, and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.
With the addition of Shrago-Spechler’s Fulbright U.S. Student Program award, Pratt students have collectively received 26 Fulbright grants since 1949 for study in countries ranging from Austria and Mauritius to Turkey and Poland. Pratt faculty members have been awarded eight Fulbright scholarships for research on architecture, theater, education, engineering, library science, and urban planning in Azerbaijan, Japan, India, Taiwan, Turkey, and Ukraine.
Applications for the 2021-2022 award are now open, with a deadline of October 13, 2020. Interested Pratt students or alumni can learn more by visiting the Fulbright at Pratt section of the Pratt website, and can make appointments to talk to an advisor via Pratt Pro/Handshake. For more information about the Fulbright Program, visit http://eca.state.gov/fulbright.