Highlights
Student Profile: Clayton Brown
As an undergraduate and then graduate student at Utah State University, Clayton Brown pursued two of his great intellectual passions: history and Asian studies. He was especially interested in Chinese culture—folklore, political movements, nationalism—and it was in 2001, during a course he took in the first year of his doctoral program in the Department of History at the University of Pittsburgh, that these interests converged.
"I was taking a course with Professor Nicole Constable on ethnography and I realized that anthropology was a great way to explore issues related to Chinese identity," offers Brown.
Since that time, Brown's study and research have evolved into his dissertation topic, "Making the Majority: Defining Han Identity in Chinese Ethnology and Archeology." The specific international relations and national security aspects examined in his work made Brown an excellent candidate for a National Security Education Program (NSEP) David L. Boren Graduate Fellowship, an award he received for the 2006-2007 academic year.
The distinction from the NSEP is only one of an exceptional list of awards that Brown has received during the past few years. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation and the Wrenner-Gren Foundation, he received a Fulbright Fellowship to pursue research in Taiwan related to his thesis, and in May 2007 he received the Andrew W. Mellon/ACLS Early Career Fellowship: Dissertation Completion Fellowship.
Brown has been invited to present at a number of conferences including one in Taiwan, one at Harvard, one at Princeton, and most recently in China. In January 2007, he presented at the American Historical Association's annual conference.
"All of the conferences have been incredible learning experiences," says Brown. "The first presentation in Taiwan was challenging, but over time I have become more prepared and more comfortable."
Brown anticipates completing his dissertation in spring 2007, and he is currently exploring some of the many possibilities that will be available to him once he graduates from the University of Pittsburgh, including post-doctoral fellowships and appointments to history departments. For now, however, he continues to read, research, write, and share his findings with a community of scholars who are increasingly impressed with what they are hearing.
