Benjamin Arenstein ‘18GS has been awarded a 2023-2024 Fulbright Grant, one of 19 Columbia affiliates in this year’s prestigious cohort. A graduate of the Joint Degree Program with Columbia and the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), Arenstein double majored in Jewish literature and history at GS. He is currently a PhD student at the University of Chicago specializing in modern Hebrew language and literature. Arenstein is also no stranger to Fulbright: he previously received a 2018 Fulbright Teaching Assistantship Award to teach English to college-age students at the Namangan Technological Engineering Institute in Namangan, Uzbekistan.
Arenstein’s 2023-2024 Fulbright grant will support his research into Soviet émigré writing in Israel during the 1950s-1980s, studies which he will conduct at the University of Haifa as a Fulbright fellow. The goal of the project is to illuminate how literary networks established between the Soviet Union and Israel during these decades advanced innovations in narrative creation, an endeavor which complements and enhances Arenstein’s long term interests in language, cultural exchange, and the connection between places and the literature they foster.
About the Fulbright U.S. Student Program
The Fulbright U.S. Student Program provides funding for students and young professionals to embark on self-designed research and study projects, or primary and secondary school teaching in English-language classrooms across the globe. Awarding approximately 1,900 grants annually in all fields of study, and operating in more than 140 countries, Fulbright is one of the most renowned international exchange programs in the world.
To learn more about fellowship opportunities, GS students are encouraged to visit the Fellowships section of the website, and to reach out to the GS Fellowships Office or the Columbia Undergraduate Research & Fellowships office.
