The Canadian Studies Program is pleased to announce Mathew Kovac as the recipient of an Edward E. Hildebrand Graduate Research Fellowship for Summer 2024.
Matthew is a PhD candidate in the Department of History. His research focuses on anticolonial struggles and transnational solidarity movements in the 20th century. His dissertation examines the role of solidarity committees in building alliances between Irish republicans and the Palestinian and South African national liberation movements during the 1960s-1980s.
Matt’s Hildebrand Fellowship will support archival research in Vancouver and Montreal, where he will investigate the activities of local Irish solidarity committees. Matthew's fellowship will allow him to explore the understudied role that Canadian actors played in this global revolutionary network, including their relationships with First Nations activists and Québécois nationalists.
Matt holds a BS in Journalism and History from Northwestern University and an MSt in Modern British and European History from the University of Oxford. He previously worked as communications manager for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights in San Francisco.