CUNY Distinguished Professor Alison Griffiths Named Fulbright Arctic Chair

Award is among the most prestigious appointments in the Fulbright Scholarship Program

February 24, 2022

Alison Griffiths, PhD and a CUNY Distinguished Professor of film and media studies at the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences, was awarded the Fulbright Distinguished Arctic Scholar Award to Norway.

As the Fulbright Arctic Chair, Dr. Griffiths will be based at the National Library of Norway in Oslo, where she will examine amateur films of Indigenous Sámi people made between 1907-1960 within a broader historical context of visual representations of the Arctic, including cartographic materials in the world famous Ginsberg Map Collection at the National Library.

Griffiths will reconnect the films to the Sámi community, working with stakeholders at the Centre for Sámi Studies at The Arctic University in Tromsø (UiT). In her work, Dr. Griffiths argues that “amateur film proves to be a remarkable repository of Indigenous memory and history, capable of telling new stories about resilience, self-determination, as well as documenting environmental change.”

“I am proud to share this honor with Baruch College,” Dr. Griffiths shared in a statement. “The College’s continued support of my scholarship has helped make this award possible.”

Fulbright Distinguished Chair

 The Fulbright Arctic Chair is part of the Fulbright Distinguished Chair program, which was established in 1976 and is now considered among most prestigious appointments in the Fulbright Scholarship Program.

The Arctic Chair is awarded to a single scholar from the United States each year and includes a three-four month residence to perform research and lecture at a Norwegian higher education or research institution. Recipients are selected on the basis of academic and professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership in their field of expertise. For Distinguished Chair programs, applicants are expected to have significant publication and teaching experience as well.

The Fulbright Program is the flagship international academic exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government, which has fostered mutual understanding between the United States and other countries since 1946.

Award Winning Scholarship

Dr. Griffiths is no stranger to professional accolades. Her numerous awards and honors include a 2018–19 Guggenheim Fellowship for Film, Video, and New Media Studies, one of the most prestigious awards in the humanities.

VIDEO: Guggenheim Awards: Professor Alison Griffiths

In 2019, The City University of New York (CUNY) Board of Trustees voted unanimously to grant her the title of CUNY Distinguished Professor of Film and Media Studies. CUNY Distinguished Professorships are the highest honor that the University confers on faculty and the highest rank that a CUNY professor can achieve.

Dr. Griffiths is an internationally recognized scholar whose monographs and over 35 scholarly articles and book chapters have had a major impact on the fields of anthropology, cultural history, cinema studies, nineteenth century visual culture, and new media studies. She has been a faculty member of Baruch’s Department of Communication Studies since 1998 and the CUNY Graduate Center’s Doctoral Program in Theater since 2004.

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