Tania Shew

All Disciplines Award, Harvard University - Modern History

I am currently researching the consideration of sex-strikes as a tactic within the British and American women’s suffrage movements. I am a PhD student at the University of Manchester, having grown up in London and studied at the Universities of Sussex and Oxford. I have spent most of my life in England, within 200 miles of where I was born. Through my research I figuratively cross the Atlantic every day and conceptually enter the meeting rooms and protest spaces of American feminists from a century ago. Receiving a Fulbright enables me to cross the Atlantic in reality, visit the places that I imagine daily and access the sources that are vital for me to complete my research.

Before commencing my PhD, I spent some time as a professional actress in the TV and film industry. I strongly believe in the power of visual media for communicating stories and making emerging ideas more accessible to a wider range of people from different disciplines, educational backgrounds and across borders. In the future, I hope to use my experiences in both acting and academia to research and present historical documentaries and resurrect the lives of historic women from around the world who have been "hidden from history".