Amy Erica Smith, assistant professor in the Department of Political Science, has been awarded a Visiting Fellowship at the University of Notre Dame’s Kellogg Institute of International Studies. She will be in residence at Notre Dame during the 2016-2017 academic year. Each year, the Kellogg Institute brings together six to ten senior and promising junior scholars for semester or year-long fellowships to develop research projects related to democracy and human development around the world.
During her stay at Notre Dame, Smith will be finishing a book manuscript entitled "The Culture Wars in Another America: Evangelicals, Catholics, and Brazilian Democracy." In the book, Smith examines why Brazilian evangelicals and Catholics have become highly active in recent Brazilian elections, but in ways very distinctive from evangelicals and Catholics in the United States. Ultimately, she wants to understand how religious mobilization affects the quality of Brazilian democracy. In the book, Smith draws on data she collected during her Fulbright Fellowship in Brazil in 2014, as well as in other survey projects.
"I am thrilled about this opportunity," Smith said. "The Kellogg Institute houses many fantastic scholars who are faculty members at Notre Dame, and it also brings in many great visiting scholars for short or long periods each year. It’s really an ideal intellectual environment to work on a project like mine. I can’t imagine a better place to write the kind of book I want to write. I will be able to get feedback from some of the leading scholars in the world on Latin American politics, and on religion and politics globally.”
Smith will be physically gone, but not entirely absent from Iowa State next year. She will continue to work with ISU research assistants on a grant-funded project on gender in academia, and on research related to religion and politics in Latin America.