The USC Libraries and the fellowship selection committee are pleased to announce this year’s recipients of Sources of Social Justice: The Floyd Covington Fellowship. The fellowship supports integration of social justice-related library collections into teaching and research. This year’s awardees are professors Maddox Pennington (Writing Program) and Natalia Molina (American Studies and Ethnicity).
Professor Pennington’s proposal outlines an ambitious plan to revise two of their Writing Program courses by way of exploration of USC Libraries, deep holdings in civil rights and race relations history. “NDNs Everywhere: Rhetoric, Representation, and Cultural Realities” pays especially close attention to Native American history, narratives, and civil rights struggles. “Intersections of Disability and Writing,” which Professor Pennington is adapting for the Writing Program’s “Human Values and Belief Systems” track, is being revised so as to address comparative modes of civil, electoral, and human rights across activist communities and groups.
Professor Molina aims to bring new and under-utilized primary source materials to her graduate and undergraduate students in Latinx Los Angeles and Comparative Ethnic Studies coursework. Professor Molina has identified a rich array of primary source collections spanning documentary records, visual art and culture, and photography which will become the key archives for original graduate and undergraduate research.
Professor Pennington and Professor Molina have identified key library faculty with whom to work closely on these innovative forays into deeper integration among teaching, research, and vital USC libraries collections.
In keeping with the spirit and legacy of Floyd Covington, whose career in mid-twentieth-century Los Angeles epitomized the fight for civil and equal rights for all, the committee is delighted to announce the results of this year’s fellowship competition and to congratulate professors Maddox Pennington and Natalia Molina.