Mariola Espinosa, associate professor of history, was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant, the nation’s most prestigious humanities scholarship.
This year, the NEH awarded $22.6 million to 219 humanities projects nationwide. Since its inception in 1965, NEH has funded more than $6.4 billion to more than 70,000 projects in all 50 states.
Espinosa received one of 78 NEH fellowships awarded this year to support advanced research and writing projects by humanities scholars. Espinosa will use her $60,000 award to research and write a book chronicling the development of medicine in Puerto Rico.
“This award means that others find my ideas and work on the history of medicine in Puerto Rico valuable and important,” Espinosa says. “I am from Puerto Rico, and this project has always been somewhat personal since it is taking me back to study something about my home. Some of the people I find in my sources are people who I have heard about through family stories.”
Espinosa’s project looks at the medical professional and popular reactions to a new therapy technique, known as asuerotherapy, which became popular in Spanish-speaking countries in 1929.
“Asuerotherapy claimed to cure all kinds of ailments, and doctors, including those in Puerto Rico, began using the controversial method to treat their patients,” Espinosa says. “Many prominent Puerto Rican doctors claimed that they could provide unprecedented relief using this technique. Others argued that these practitioners were exploiting public credulity and making a mockery of the medical profession. My book, Sensational Cures, documents how Puerto Rican doctors addressed the controversy by defining the relationship between scientific knowledge, medical ethics, and the practice of medicine.”
Espinosa previously received an NEH Summer Stipend, a UI International Programs Summer Research Fellowship, and a UI Arts and Humanities Initiative Award that have allowed her to develop her book topic and complete research in archives and collections in Puerto Rico, Spain, and the United States. She has also recently received P3 Post-tenure Faculty Support from the Provost’s Office for this project. With the NEH award, she will take the time to finish a draft of the book.
Espinosa came to the UI in fall 2013.
“I have worked in different institutions, and I can confidently say that Iowa’s is the best history department I have ever worked in,” she says. “Everyone — from the staff, students, to colleagues — are supportive of each other and all are working towards making this a better world for everyone.”