University of Richmond Professor Laura Browder Awarded Fulbright Grant to Study Civil Rights Activism in Denmark

American Studies professor Laura Browder has been named a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar in American Studies at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense, which is located in Scandinavia. 

Her project — “Denmark’s Role in International Civil Rights Activism” — will focus on how Danish activists have played influential but understudied roles in developing international civil rights.

Specifically, Browder intends to explore the 1930s when Martin Andersen Nexø became a prominent international spokesperson for civil rights and when the magazine Negro Worker, sponsored by Comintern (an international Communist organization), was published in Copenhagen. Browder will also research the role of the Danish folk school movement in helping foster activist networks and the influence of folk schools on the American civil rights movement.

“Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, among many others, were trained in civil disobedience at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee,” Browder said. “I am really looking forward to thinking about how we might further internationalize American Studies here at the University of Richmond, and spending a year in residence at the Center for American Studies at SDU will give me a perfect opportunity to do that.”    

Browder, who has taught at UR since 2010, previously received support to serve as a Fulbright specialist in South Africa, where she partnered with students, faculty, and staff at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg to curate an art exhibition focusing on inequality.

Browder will complete her Fulbright during the 2022–23 academic year.

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