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Liza Weinstein
Why fellowship support is valuable
With the fellowship support I have received at the University of Chicago, I have explored both the University’s abundant resources and my own academic interests. My fellowships have given me the financial freedom and flexibility to take courses outside of my department. In addition to sociology, I have taken courses in anthropology, geography, history, public policy, and South Asian studies. It was through this process of exploration that I decided to focus my dissertation research in India and to take language courses in Marathi.
I came to Chicago to study urban policy and the impact of economic globalization on cities and urban regions. I had recently completed my masters degree in sociology at the New School for Social Research, writing my thesis on economic development programs in Central Harlem. I had intended to continue studying New York, or at least U.S. cities. Yet once I began taking courses in South Asian history, politics, and anthropology, I discovered that a focus on this region of the world would be both an exciting pursuit and add an important comparative dimension to my research. My interest in India did not arise spontaneously, however, as I had studied Indian culture and society as an undergraduate and had visited during my junior year to do an internship at the Gandhi Peace Foundation. Yet it was due to the exceptional opportunities at Chicago and the financial freedom afforded me by fellowships that I decided to focus on this fascinating region and have subsequently been well trained to do so.
At the end of my second year, once all of my required course work was completed, I began studying Marathi, the language of India’s western state of Maharashtra. The opportunity I have had to take Marathi language courses through third-year illustrates the exceptional resources available here. This training will prove invaluable next year, when I begin ethnographic research on the impact of land and infrastructure development on working class neighborhoods in Mumbai (formerly Bombay).
With the support of a University of Chicago Committee on Southern Asian Studies (COSAS) field research fellowship, I spent last summer conducting pre-dissertation research in Mumbai. While in Mumbai, I served as a visiting scholar at the Indian Council for Social Science Research. I worked closely with professors in the University of Mumbai’s sociology and geography departments, conducting an exploratory scan of local land development policies.
Why I chose Chicago
I decided to pursue a doctorate at the University of Chicago because of its well-earned reputation in graduate instruction in general and sociology in particular. I was attracted, particularly, by the sociology department’s renowned faculty, whose theoretical and empirical concerns were a perfect match to my own. I came to study urban political economy and globalization with the some of the foremost researchers in the field, including Saskia Sassen, Terry Clark, and Richard Taub.
Plans for the future
I will spend the 2005-2006 academic year conducting dissertation research in India. Upon my return to the U.S., I will begin looking for an academic job and continue conducting research and teaching in the areas of political and urban sociology, international development and globalization, and South Asian studies.
About myself
I was born in Atlanta, Georgia. My family moved to Detroit when I was nine years old. I graduated from Dearborn High School in 1995 and went to college at Michigan State University’s James Madison College, where I double-majored in anthropology and social relations. I wrote my BA thesis on the use of historic preservation as a tool for neighborhood revitalization and community empowerment in an older industrial section of Lansing, Michigan. As an undergraduate, I worked at the Boys and Girls Club of Lansing and at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research.
After graduating from MSU, I moved to New York, where I pursued a Masters Degree in Sociology at the New School for Social Research. I moved to Chicago in 2001 to continue graduate studies at the University of Chicago.
I am currently working as a part time research assistant at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, conducting research on housing policy, community development, and regional governance. I live on the north side of Chicago with my husband and two cats.
