October 21, 2024
The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) and Liberal Arts Engagement Hub (The Hub) are pleased to announce Arianna Genis as Visionary Community Fellow for 2024-25. Genis will receive $10,000 and spend a year in residence at the IAS while pursuing her research and developing community programming in collaboration with the IAS and The Hub.
Arianna Genis is the founder of The Movida Initiative: A Democracy Lab for Latinos—a platform building the power of Midwest Latinos to transform their future and democracy. With over a decade of political experience, she has driven change at organizations like TakeAction Minnesota and Mijente, helping secure paid sick leave in Minneapolis, leading campaigns to elect progressive leaders of color into office, and boosting Latino voter turnout nationwide. Recently, as Organizer-In-Residence and Research Scholar at the P3 Lab at Johns Hopkins University, she developed her theory of Latino agency, or 'movidas,' combining scholarship, innovative practices, and organizing experience—an approach that influenced the design of the Movida Initiative.
While a Visionary Community Fellow, Genis will pursue a project titled, “‘Movidas’ of Change: Reimagining Latino Power and Democracy in the Heartland.” Throughout the fellowship, Genis will work with Jessica Lopez-Lyman, Assistant Professor of Chicano & Latino Studies, as her faculty mentor.
The Visionary Community Fellowship from the University of Minnesota’s Institute for Advanced Study and Liberal Arts Engagement Hub is designed to invite greater and more substantive dialogue between community leaders, artists, activists, and surrounding community. The program provides a platform for community members to lead the University in identifying and prioritizing programming and research around themes of central importance.
About the Institute for Advanced Study
At the Institute for Advanced Study, we invest in people and incubate innovative projects, build interdisciplinary networks across the University and beyond, advance critical conversations, and are committed to building a just University together.
About the Liberal Arts Engagement Hub
The Liberal Arts Engagement Hub (The Hub) in the College of Liberal Arts is a transformational initiative intended to deepen the college’s culture of engagement, bringing humanistic scholars in the arts, humanities, and social sciences and community members together in a spirit of co-creation and reciprocal partnership to respond to important social problems.