Professor Laurence Ralph named Carnegie Fellow

Laurence Ralph, assistant professor of African and African American Studies and assistant professor of anthropology at Harvard College, is one of 32 inaugural Andrew Carnegie Fellows, the  Carnegie Corporation of New York announced on April 22. Recipients of the new annual fellowship supporting scholars in the social sciences and humanities will receive up to $200,000 each, which will enable them to devote between one and two years to research and writing. The anticipated result of each fellowship is a book or major study.

Fellows were chosen from among more than 300 people nominated by leaders from universities, think tanks, publishing, independent scholars, and nonprofit organizations nationwide.

Ralph is an anthropologist who, as a Fellow, will research the impact of witnessing gun violence and death on back and Latino youths. He is currently working on an ethnography titled Half Dead: Violence and Mobility in a Chicago Street Gang. The book explores the networks of commerce, criminality, and affiliation that congeal in the figure of the disabled gang affiliate.