Congratulations to Minying Huang and Elizabeth Rees on passing their DPhil vivas
The RAI congratulates two of its Postgraduate Members, Minying Huang and Elizabeth Rees, on passing their doctoral vivas.
Minying’s thesis represents an outstanding and significant contribution to literary, cultural, and historical studies of the Arab diaspora in the Americas, as well as a very welcome methodological intervention in scholarly approaches to globally marginalised literatures and cultures. Deftly combining close poetic analysis with historical and material contextualisation, it emphasises writers’ creative agency and a processual understanding of tradition to illuminate the diversity and complexity of a body of poetry that has in the past been written off as too traditional. Drawing on an impressive range of rare and previously overlooked archival sources, it provides valuable accounts of transnational political and cultural networks, mapping nineteenth- and twentieth-century exchanges that spanned Europe, North America, Latin America, and the Arabic-speaking world
Many congratulations to Elizabeth Rees for the successful viva of her thesis “The Counterpart System: How Does the East Wing and Office of the First Lady Develop Within the Executive Establishment Between 1961-1976?” on June 24, 2024. The external examiner Dr Tom Tunstall Allcock (University of Manchester) commented: 'This thesis explores the growth of the White House East Wing staff between 1961 and 1976, from a relatively small and informal group of assistants to a large professional staff, vital to the functioning of the modern American presidency... the thesis is remarkably successful, providing a detailed and engaging narrative, expertly researched, that makes a significant contribution to an under-researched field.' Elizabeth’ supervisor, Professor Uta Balbier, Deputy Director of the RAI, called the thesis: “a tremendous achievement. Driven by interdisciplinary rigor, compellingly argued, and beautifully written, it does not just make an important contribution to the history of the US Presidency, but also to women’s history more generally. It is wonderful to see the East Wing staffers’ histories finally told and valued.” Elizbeth currently continues her academic career as a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University.
