News Release

Huntsville native Ted Blanton, who is pursuing a doctoral degree in history at The Johns Hopkins University, has been awarded a grant from the Fulbright Student Program for the 2006-2007 academic year. He is one of eight Johns Hopkins students and graduates so far this spring to receive a Fulbright grant, one of the most prestigious awards in academia.

Blanton, 30, will travel to Spain to conduct research primarily on documents contained in the Archivo de la Corona de Aragon (ACA) in Barcelona. He plans to research how the relationships which he groups under the rubric "artificial kinship" — namely relations formed through adoption, wardship, spiritual filiations and step- parenthood — worked during the period of 1000 to 1300 to establish and maintain the hegemony of the counts of Barcelona over the other noble families of Catalonia. A graduate of University of Alabama in Huntsville, where he earned a bachelor's degree in history and French, Blanton holds a master's degree in history from Purdue University. He anticipates earning his doctorate from Johns Hopkins in May 2009.

Created in 1946, the Fulbright Program aims to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries through the exchange of people, knowledge and skills. The program awards approximately 1,000 grants annually and currently operates in more than 140 countries. Successful U.S. applicants utilize their grants to undertake self-designed programs in a broad range of disciplines including the social sciences, business, communication, performing arts, physical sciences, engineering and education.

Blanton lives in Baltimore. His mother, June Norton, resides in Owens Cross Roads, Ala., and his father, James Blanton, lives in Estillfork, Ala. For information on the Fulbright program, go to www.iie.org.