We are delighted to announce that the annual Leo P. Ribuffo Dissertation Prize has been awarded to Abigail Modaff (Harvard University), for “To ‘Meet Life Face to Face’: Communication and American Social Reform from Haymarket to the Harlem Renaissance.”
The Society for U.S. Intellectual History established the Leo P. Ribuffo Prize for Best Dissertation in U.S. Intellectual History in 2019. Ribuffo, a revered scholar and exemplary mentor, reshaped the field during his long and illustrious career at George Washington University. The award seeks to honor his life and career by recognizing the distinguished work of emerging scholars and to advance the highest levels of research, writing, and scholarship.
We are deeply grateful to this year’s prize committee of Lisa A. Szefel (Chair), Janine Giordano Drake, and Brian Ingrassia. Here is the committee’s statement on Abigail Modaff’s prize-winning work:
“Capacious in conception and dynamic in execution, Abigail Modaff’s ambitious dissertation redraws the boundaries of Progressive Era reform efforts. Between the 1880s and 1930s, she argues that reformers of all stripes shared a commitment to a “communicative ideal.” Middle-class, white, African American, and gay radicals believed that facilitating communication formed the first necessary step to make society anew. To that end, she examines habits of mind and presumptions that imbued political efforts. She assesses the influence European Romantic literature and aesthetic theory on such activists as Jane Addams, Alain Locke, William James, Hubert Hutchinson, Marcus Garvey, and William Salter, along with a range of anarchists and Harlem Renaissance artists. With “Romantic conversion” prompting such individuals to action, she tracks their debates about the specific parameters of this “politics of understanding.” Who was allowed to speak, and which language was acceptable to use? What strategies did they deploy to get others to listen and, indeed, to care. Steeped in scholarship and eloquence at each step, Modaff brings to light a “politics of understanding” fueled by faith in the transformative power of communication and undergirded by emotions that became a dominant force in political life for a half-century. She concludes that ‘The communicative ideal built the past. It could build the future.'”
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Congratulations to Abigail Modaff! And I do love seeing new scholarship on the Progressive Era. It feels like an endless source of inspiration for scholars of U.S. history, and of intellectual history in particular.
I also really appreciate your focus on communication as a vital arena for reform and progress. Varied notions of speech, language, debate, listening, and conversation were a central features of my work on the great books idea, which has deep roots in the Progressive Era. I called it “critical citizenship,” but I do appreciate your invocation of a/the politics of understanding. – TL