The Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies is excited to announce that Bobbi Kindred, a Ph.D. candidate in Feminist Studies, has been awarded the prestigious Alvord Endowed Fellowship for the 2023-24 academic year by the College of Arts & Sciences.
The Alvord Endowed Fellowship is one of the most distinguished awards for doctoral students in the humanities and provides recipients with the opportunity to concentrate on their research and dissertation writing. Kindred will use the fellowship to continue their groundbreaking research on the intersections of Black feminism, addiction recovery, and literature.
Kindred's research examines the narratives of addiction recovery, and “raises important questions of what is meant by “recovery” when articulated from the margins and how does recovery get redressed from normative notions embedded in power and dominance?” In their dissertation, Kindred proposes a counter-narrative to the traditional recovery program promoted by Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), and “recontextualizes recovery beyond its relationship to compulsive substance use to broader themes of colonization, land displacement, and systemic racism.”
“Bobbi’s research, dissertation, [and] public scholarship, promises to advance performance studies, critical addiction studies, Black studies and Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies in novel ways,” said Michelle Habell-Pallan, Co-Chair of Kindred's dissertation committee. “It will make a life and death impact for those searching for themselves in the archive of recovery material.”
The Alvord Endowed Fellowship is named in honor of Dr. Ellsworth Alvord, a professor and head of neuropathology in the UW School of Medicine, and Nancy Alvord, a founding member of the UW Foundation Board of Directors. The Alvord’s were long-time supporters of UW, and the Fellowship reflects the high value they placed on the breadth of learning fostered by the humanities.
Congratulations to Bobbi Kindred on this well-deserved honor!