Graduate Fellowship Winners

These fellowships are made possible by the generous support of the Marion and Frank Long family, the Jesse F. and Dora H. Bluestone family, and an anonymous donor. Learn more about the Reppy Institute’s graduate fellowship program.

Kaitlin Findlay

Recipient of Jesse F. and Dora H. Bluestone Peace Studies Fellowship, 2023-24

Kaitlin Findlay is a doctoral candidate in the Cornell History Department. Her current research examines forced displacement, humanitarianism, liberal internationalism, and memory in the mid-twentieth century.

Research Project
"A Humanitarian Vision Lost: North American Practices of Forced Displacement and Humanitarian Oversight in the 1940s"

My dissertation examines how North American nation-states engaged with the institutions and conventions of international law during and immediately after WWII (1939-51) and the subsequent remembrance of these events. I interrogate how politicians and lawmakers interpreted and engaged with norms of liberal internationalism and humanitarianism when they uprooted, incarcerated, and repatriated persons of Japanese descent. Further, my project examines three perspectives that converge in the implementation of humanitarian practice: the representatives of international law, state actors, and those whom the laws affect. Throughout, I consider how conceptions of law, race, citizenship, humanitarian care, and accountability shaped these processes. With particular attention to the representation and memory of displacement, my project is grounded in primary research from community, federal, and international archives. I will utilize the Jesse F. and Dora H. Bluestone Peace Studies Fellowship to conduct archival research at the Archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva (Switzerland), in fall 2023.