Barbara Savage Honored by University of Oxford

The Queen’s College at University of Oxford recognized Barbara Savage, Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought and Professor of Africana Studies, with an undergraduate prize named in her honor. The Barbara Savage Prize will be awarded annually to the student with the best thesis in  Black history.

In the 2018-2019 academic year, Savage was Harmsworth Visiting Professor of American History at Queen’s. She is currently at work on an intellectual biography of Merze Tate, a Black woman and professor at Howard University from 1942 to 1977. Merze was trained at Oxford and Harvard Universities and was a pioneer in the fields of diplomatic history and international relations.

“The new Black History Thesis Prize is a step toward making this field more visible at Oxford,” Savage says. “Black history offers opportunities for exciting new research across time and space. The prize also signals that Black lives mattered in the past, too. History always teaches us about the present. We cannot understand the nexus between racial legacies of the past and the pressing current moment without knowing that history.”

Steven J. Fluharty, Dean and Thomas S. Gates, Jr. Professor of Psychology, Pharmacology, and Neuroscience, says, “Barbara Savage’s contributions as a historian are enormous. We are lucky to count her as a member of the faculty at Penn Arts & Sciences and it is no surprise to see this international recognition of her work.”

Read The Queen’s College announcement here.