Two UNC Greensboro faculty will spend the next year expanding access to world history, literature, design, and environments. The Fulbright Commission selected Dr. James Anderson, professor of history, and Rachele Riley, associate professor of new media and design, for their 2026-27 grantees.
“Applying for a Fulbright has been a goal of mine, and I have been working towards this for several years,” says Riley, who will go to Scotland to study the poetic qualities and histories of water and letterform designs.
In the meantime, Anderson will head to Hanoi, Vietnam, to translate a 14th-century work by a Vietnamese scholar. He is grateful to create something that will make Asian history more accessible to students and historians.
He says, “I have the opportunity to work on a project that will offer undergraduate and graduate students, as well as scholars beyond my field, a vision of the pre-modern worlds of Vietnam and China, to which I have devoted my teaching and research over the past 27 years.”
Seeking Water and Letters at their Source
Riley’s Fulbright award helps her advance her multimedia design research project “World Wide Water: Visualizing the Dynamics of Water, Letterforms, and Space.”
It builds upon a piece she began in 2000 while living in Halle, Germany. There, she created an artwork which explored access to freshwater and drinking water and its emotional and physical values. Over the years she has created other versions of “World Wide Water,” focusing on different data and different locations.
“I am interested in visualizing water words, documenting water spaces, and exploring how water connects us all,” she explains.
She says these additions to “World Wide Water” will come from researching “stories, ecologies, mythologies, technologies, phenomena, and the expression of identity and letterform design in urban and rural areas around Glasgow and the Highlands.”
“I am excited to be living abroad again for an extended period of time and able to experience the rhythms of daily life while being engaged in research, teaching, and cultural exchange activities,” says Riley. She plans to combine field work with studio and archival research, working alongside artists, designers, and researchers at The Glasgow School of Art, where she will take part in teaching opportunities.
Riley says she looks forward to the many personal, aesthetic, and natural experiences this award will provide. She expects it to be inspirational and transformative.
“It will be a foundation for future collaborations and future research projects as well,” she says.
The Word of Lê Tắc
Anderson’s Fulbright award sends him to Vietnam National University, fulfilling a dream he’s had for decades. “I have spent 27 years promoting Asian studies at UNCG and helping my students understand aspects of East Asian societies yesterday and today,” he says.
He is focused on renowned scholar and official Lê Tắc’s Vision of “Homeland,” which is part of his Annals of Annam. Lê Tắc fled Vietnam after backing the failed Mongol invasion and spent the rest of his life in exile in China.
“The history of Vietnam that he wrote is filled with nostalgia for his home, which he would never see again. I found that story compelling,” says Anderson. “Because this history has never been fully translated into English, I thought that I could bring this story to a new audience beyond those who can read it in the original Classical Chinese edition.”
This award follows the publishing of Anderson’s second monograph on the Sino-Vietnamese borderlands. It fits in with his broader mission of expanding Asian studies at UNCG and promoting an internationalization of the curriculum. He says, “By conducting archival research at Vietnam National University in Hanoi and collaborating with Vietnamese scholars, this research will also help strengthen U.S.–Vietnam academic exchanges.”
He is most excited that his translation will not just be for specialists. “It can also be used in the classroom for teaching cross-cultural understanding.”
Story by Janet Imrick, University Communications
