Society of Scholars
The Society of Scholars is an intellectual community of humanists of diverse generations, academic ranks, and departmental affiliations who contribute to and learn from one another’s work. Each year, approximately eight faculty and three dissertation research fellowships support members of the Society of Scholars. Scholars in year-long residence at the University of Washington may be invited to participate as well. The group meets biweekly throughout the year to discuss their research in progress.
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2026 - 2027 Society of Scholars
2018 - 2019 Society of Scholars Fellow
Vanessa Freije (she/her/hers)
Scandalous Democracy: Journalists and Citizenship in Mexico, 1959-1988
In the late-twentieth century, political scandals transformed Mexican public culture. Influential journalists exposed official wrongdoing to demand greater political accountability. My book project utilizes reporters’ and politicians’ private archives to examine the production and afterlives of political scandals. Doing so illuminates three processes underway in the late-twentieth century: the emergence of a politicized urban public, the transition from state-led development to neoliberal governance, and the unraveling of one-party rule under the Institutionalized Revolutionary Party (PRI).