Valparaiso University Announces University Research Professor Grants

Valparaiso University faculty members Robert Elder and Carlos Miguel-Pueyo have received University Research Professor grants to continue their studies. The grant program recognizes and encourages scholarly accomplishments and honors faculty members for original research and creative work.

Elder, an assistant professor of history, will continue research on a book on South Carolina Sen. John C. Calhoun. Calhoun, one of the most influential members of the upper house, also was the country’s seventh vice president but is best known for his staunch defense of slavery and steering his home state and others toward secession before the Civil War.

Elder’s proposed book “John C. Calhoun and the American South in the Modern World,” will examine the senator’s relevance in a country rocked by racially charged shootings in Ferguson, Mo., and Charleston, S.C. Elder, who joined the faculty in 2014, is the author of “The Sacred Mirror: Evangelicalism, Honor, and Identity in the American South, 1790-1860.”

Pueyo, an assistant professor of foreign languages, is working on a book chronicling the use of color in the poetry of the man Hispanic Modernist authors in Spain and Latin America between the second half of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries.

“The Color of Hispanic Modernism” will examine ways six noted poets of the era used color and other factors to fully express themselves. Pueyo began as a visiting professor at Valpo in 2005 and joined the faculty a year later. He is the author of three previous books.

University Research Professors are selected by the University president upon recommendation of the Committee on Creative Work and Research. The Committee selects on the basis of the proposal’s originality and significance and the applicant’s capacity to execute the program of study.