Assistant Professor of History Jessica Levy Receives NEH Grant

Jessica Levy, Assistant Professor of History, was awarded an NEH Summer Stipend ($6,000) to support research related to her ongoing project, “The American Automobile Industry in the Global South since 1960.”

Building on and complicating histories of deindustrialization centered in U.S. cities, this project asks: how does the history of late 20th century U.S. automobile manufacturing and the transition to a “post-industrial” society change when we shift the focus from the (American) Rustbelt to the global Sunbelt?

Rather than cities like Detroit—home of the “Big Three” automakers: General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler—this project centers U.S. auto-manufacturing in Kenya, Ecuador, the Philippines, and other sites across the global South since 1960. Moving from a local to a global frame, it investigates U.S. auto-manufacturers’ dealings with multiple local and national governments around tax benefits for foreign investors, trade and labor regulations, and international licensing agreements.

In doing so, itreveals narratives of global expansion and U.S. corporate imperialism occurring alongside, and, at times ameliorating, industrial decline.

The NEH Summer Stipends support 97 humanities scholars in undertaking archival research for books and articles 

National Endowment for the Humanities: Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available at www.neh.gov.