Department of History

PhD Candidate Natalie Cornett awarded a 2-year post doctoral research fellowship hosted by McGill University

April 30, 2021

The Quebec Research Fund (Fonds de recherche du Québec) has just announced that Natalie
Cornett is the recipient of a 2-year postdoctoral research fellowship hosted by McGill University.
Her project, “Róża’s World: Rosa Luxemburg, Partitioned Poland, and Socialist Internationalism
(1893-1919)” ranked #1 in her field and was given the overall designation A+ (exceptionnel) by
the evaluation committee. The project enters the world of fin-de-siècle Europe and international
socialism from the perspective of the socialist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919), or by
her Polish name, Róża Luksemburg. Expanding beyond biographical understandings of
Luxemburg, the study will instead use Luxemburg as a lens through which to view larger
questions of the period, such as emancipatory politics, nationalism and women’s rights. In this
way, the new project connects with themes found in Cornett’s dissertation, “The Politics of
Love: The ‘Enthusiasts’ and Feminism of Nineteenth-Century Poland,” where Cornett examined
the early Polish women’s movement using letters, diaries and police files pertaining to an
educated women’s circle called the “Enthusiasts” (Entuzjastki). The fellowship will allow
Cornett to pursue full-time research on the new project, in addition to providing the opportunity
for dissemination activities at McGill and beyond.