UICB certificate student and American Studies PhD candidate Mark Mattes has been awarded the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Early American Literature and Material Texts for work on his dissertation titled “Material Letters: Media History and the Politics of Epistolary Practice, 1780-1845.” Mark’s project historicizes the connections between the generic and verbal components of letters and the physical and institutional media by which they were produced and circulated, showing how Americans and Britons used epistoles to wield, negotiate, and critique political power. Congrats to Mark!