Latin American Historian Corinna Zeltsman Awarded NEH Grant

Corinna Zeltsman, assistant professor of history has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) in a round of awards to humanities projects nationwide.

Zeltsman’s $60,000 grant is for research and writing a book, “Making Paper in Mexico: A Material, Political and Environmental History,” spanning pre-Columbian times to the present.

The project is one of 204 in the humanities receiving a total $28.1 million in NEH support for collaborative and individual humanities research, preservation of historic collections, humanities exhibitions and documentaries, and education programs and resources.

“The range, diversity, and creativity of these new projects speak to the wealth of humanities ideas and deep engagement of humanities practitioners across our country,” said NEH Chair Shelly Lowe (Navajo). “From Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Hilo, Hawai‘i, NEH funding reaches thousands of towns and communities, supporting local organizations, fostering creative projects, and providing access to high-quality humanities for all Americans.”

Zeltsman joined the Princeton faculty in September 2022. She is a historian of Modern Latin America with a focus on printing and the book, political culture, and labor in 19th- and 20th-century Mexico. Her training as a letterpress printer continues to shape her research and teaching, which also explores Latin America’s media and material cultures.

Her book “Ink Under the Fingernails: Printing Politics in Nineteenth Century Mexico”(University of California Press, 2021) received the 2022 Murdo J. Macleod Prize from the Southern Historical Association, Latin and American and Caribbean Section, the 2022 Howard F. Cline Prize in Mexican History from the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), and the Best Book in the Social Sciences Award from the LASA-Mexico Section.

This semester, she is teaching the undergraduate course “Modern Latin America Since 1810.”