“Reconstructing an Internationalism of the Present: The Political Practices and Institutions of Global Black Politics”

In the face of increasingly global crises such as ecological degradation; mass displacement of people within and across national borders; the scarcity of life sustaining resources such as water; escalating problems with food security; war and militarization; and the proliferation of gender-based violence, it has become ever more urgent to develop a framework through which to think about collective action and mobilization at the global scale. Given this, I pursue two central research questions in my book manuscript: What sources of inspiration can be derived from postwar Black internationalist politics to imagine institutions, political practices, and social forces that can be the basis for an inter/transnationalism today? How was the nation-state decentered as the primary unit for social mobilization in postwar Black internationalism through a reconceptualization of the relationship between the national, international, and transnational? I pursue these questions by turning to Frantz Fanon’s writings to argue that he offers an account of the political practices and institutions of postwar Black internationalism that remain powerfully salient today. 

"Wolves: creating art to picture the science”

While science and art both rely on observation and interpretation, professional space to integrate the two is rare. An IAS Faculty Fellowship will create the community to guide the creation of artistic science that conveys wolf ecology through innovative forms. Hated and loved, eradicated and restored—wolves have a complex and unique place in history. Humans have long told stories about wolves and Linnaeus named wolves Canis lupus in 1758, yet biologists only began studying wolves in the wild about 85 years ago. Still, wolves are likely the best studied carnivore species and are culturally iconic. My project will examine and interpret the science of wolves through art forms. A key question is, “How can I create art to picture the science of wolves?” My first Fellowship goal is to develop a series of graphic art posters that are both interactive for viewers and communicate essential aspects of wolf, carnivore, and prey biology. Second, I will develop methods to make prints of wolf specimens that creatively frame their natural history and invite viewers to examine our relationship with wolves. These efforts will form the basis for future exhibits that showcase the science and symbology of wolves through artistic methods.

“Constructing Religion, Defining Crime”

Religious freedom is one of the founding principles of American democracy. But what do we mean when we talk about “religion”? And how do we distinguish “religion” from “superstition” or “witchcraft”? Most importantly, who gets to decide what counts as a religion and what is a superstition – or a crime? My current book project, “Constructing Religion, Defining Crime,” examines how modern ideas about religion and freedom emerged within a colonial slave society. It shows how the institution of slavery made some religious practices criminal, while others were deemed legitimate. African diasporic religions were especially targeted for persecution and defined as rebellious. Examining this complex dynamic between race, belief, and danger shows that we must examine the history of slavery in order to understand the meaning of religion and the concept of religious freedom.

“Mapping without Maps”

Mapping without Maps is the first monographic work to consider how art, architecture, and state ritual worked together to represent early modern Chinese empire. I combine archival research on Qing ritual and bureaucratic systems, art historical analysis, and data-driven analysis and visualizations to show how China imagined itself as a political entity in relation to other nations, a cultural force, and an environmental power that controlled the natural spaces of its empire. I argue that these forms of non-cartographic mapping shaped a vision of empire in the Qing imagination in ways that continue to influence how China defines itself with respect to the world.

“Spectral ArchiteXture”

The postwar psyche of Japanese architecture, cities, and human settlements is significantly understudied. What desires, dreams, and struggles have secretively lodged in the rebuilding of a war-ravaged city, shaping its fate? What unchecked creative impulses and impetus (i.e. ghostly actors) have driven its building productions? Spectral ArchiteXture uncovers eleven episodes of atypical architectural productions in postwar Japan in relation to significant historical events that have returned like apparitions to disturb the present. Premised on the work of philosopher Francoise Proust and novelist Vladimir Nabokov, I treat history as “spectral” and experiment with writing an architectural history that underscores psychological evidence in building design (rather than solely premised on formal, technical, and intellectual constructs). From the unresolved war trauma and intermittent nostalgia for a bygone age to the longing for Western technological prowess, Spectral ArchiteXture shows the unseen ghostly actor as a potent agency in architectural productions – and by extension, city (re)construction. Even if only shadowy, their manifestations are absolute. The ghosts are here to stay.

“Justice, Inclusion, and Equity in Philosophy”

Diversity and the concept of race are, or should be, central concerns both for philosophy and in our current political reality. Within academic philosophy and our global community, these concerns are expressed in the growing demand for the representation of marginalized peoples and ideas. By reattuning philosophy to these gaps in history, and by mitigating philosophy's continuous disengagement with particular concepts and people, we have the opportunity to broaden our epistemic scope and philosophical reflections. Furthermore, we could change the perspective of who can be a philosopher, what a philosopher looks like, and what is considered philosophical. During this fellowship I’ll be working on two book projects that address just, inclusion, & equity in philosophy as explained in the previous paragraph. The first project aims to deepen our philosophical reflections by engaging the philosophical ideas, legacy, and life of Anton Wilhelm Amo—the first West African to obtain a philosophy doctoral at a European university (c.1734). The second project is an anthology that aims to counteract analytic philosophy’s disregard for theorizing about the issues affecting marginalized communities and reveal why the academy needs analytic philosophy.

“American Dream Disrupted: Reframing narratives on Asian American youth, gender, and inequality in schools”

My book project, American Dream Disrupted: Reframing narratives on Asian American youth, gender, and inequality in schools, examines the experiences of Hmong youth bussed from their predominantly Black neighborhoods in Minneapolis to majority white and affluent suburban schools through a program called The Choice is Yours (CIY). Although CIY is intended to improve schooling for students living in poverty through choice and accountability policies, I found that it exacerbated Hmong youths’ experiences with refugee xenophobia as well as racialized and gendered violence. American dream disrupted documents how Hmong youth produce strategies for self and community building as a reaction to institutional neglect and violence through the creation of peer networks. When youth resist model minoritization through these networks, they are held accountable by institutions for their individual failures to assimilate albeit in different ways based on their gender and sexuality. Because of this, the ways that they create and sustain community building are a major intervention and I detail the ways we may understand Asian American youths’ experiences in the Midwest through these strategies.

“Advancing Sustainable Digital Ecologies for Grassroots Organizations Documenting Human Rights Activism and Symbolic Reparation Initiatives in Transitional Colombia”

Supported by a Human Rights Initiative Grant, this project aims at understanding and supporting the documentation and archiving needs of four grassroots cultural initiatives documenting human rights activism practices, and working in memory construction and creative symbolic reparation strategies in the context of Colombia’s current post-conflict transition. The project further develops my original web platform Cultural Ecologies of Memory (CEM) http://www.culturalecologies.com/, adapting it to serve the digital archiving needs of participating initiatives, and using it as a platform for dissemination and communication to both academic and non-specialist audiences. It will achieve this through two strategies: 

1) Digital storytelling: using the digital space to showcase each of the initiatives involved by combining descriptive and interpretive text with sensorial ethnographic audiovisual elements, and making this content accessible and engaging.

 2) Digital access: key documentary materials from each of the initiatives, or related to the project’s development and its collaborative process, including interviews with participants, groups discussions, and other documentation will be made available through CEM’s Archive section. Making this documentation available for consultation is a key component through which this project centers access and transparency, and provides conditions to foster research and discussion across different fields of practice and academic inquiry (including human rights advocacy and activism, transitional justice studies, memory studies, peace studies, among others).

“The Architecture and Algorithms of Borderland Confinement”

The power to organize space is the power to organize people. At the U.S.-Mexico border, this power delineates, documents, and categorizes people into territories of access versus territories of exclusion. Yet, a largely understudied component of this process is how border architecture galvanizes segregation based on racial, gender surveillance. As walls, checkpoints, and surveillance towers push people migrating into increasingly dangerous routes, we must ask how these purposefully designed spaces ultimately determine who is the correct person to travel across borders unimpeded, who is not, and the implication for geopolitical categories of race, gender, and citizenship.

Advisors: Aren Aizura and Gabriela Spears-Rico

“Problem Property: Reproductive and Carceral Logics of Urban Renewal in the Cedar-Riverside Neighborhood, 1950–1990”

The Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis was ravaged by repeated urban development across the twentieth century, each project further displacing residents and isolating the neighborhood. Despite this, residents continued their lives in the neighborhood, grappling with each new spatial imposition. Scholarship on urban renewal has focused on marginalized communities' disproportionate exploitation and displacement. In contrast, this project engages with the reproductive politics of urban renewal. Through a historical engagement with the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, it asks how normative understandings of racialized gender were inscribed into the daily landscape of people's lives through both the plans for and failures of urban development projects. 

Advisor: Tracey Deutsch

“Insurgent Witness: Revolutionary Iran and the Question of Self-Determination”

For more than a decade now, significant parts of the Middle East and the African continent have seen a dramatic rise in revolutionary movements. From Egypt, Tunisia, and Syria to Ethiopia, Sudan, Iraq, and Iran, collectives of people have called for radical socio-political change and, at the same time, for a break from past templates of revolution. If old theories are no longer suited to describe revolutionary movements today, what conceptual language should replace them? In a world riven by multiple crises, in which political upheaval can seem almost routine, it is imperative for scholars to develop a conceptual language suited to interpret current and ongoing revolutionary movements in their specificity. This project heeds that call but does so counterintuitively by drawing comparative insight from an old movement: the 1979 revolution in Iran, commonly cited as the “last great revolution” of a bygone age. I ask two related research questions. The first is empirical, the second normative and theoretical. What similarities exist, if any, between the 1979 revolution in Iran and the revolutionary movements seen in Asia and Africa since 2009? On account of this comparison, what visions of revolution and self-determination should we endorse to advance global democracy and social justice today?

“Communication & Religion: The Gift of Presence”

A book project, tentatively entitled Communication & Religion: The Gift of Presence, will explore the relationship between the modern secular social science of communication and the modern concept of religion. Specifically, I am interested in exploring the public dimensions of religious faith as they are communicated and argued about in public affairs. The relationship between religion and politics is a longstanding one. However, employing the lens of rhetoric and communication to disentangle this relationship provides several advantages. Most notably, one can take seriously religious claims while also taking seriously public skepticism and the right to disagree and contend about public meaning. Right now, this project could not be at an earlier stage, having literally just decided to write this book. Conceptually, the project will benefit from exposure to the IAS community as well as the wider scholarly and religious communities in the Twin Cities. UMD does not have a religious studies program and there are few here interested in the relationship between religion and public life writ large. The project will benefit from interaction with Comm and philosophy faculty at Twin Cities.

“This Page Left Intentionally Blank: Rhetorical Forms of the Secret”

My research is about communication problems related to secrecy and transparency as related to race, gender, and democratic governance. The core project proposed is a book-length work titled This Page Left Intentionally Blank: Rhetorical Forms of the Secret, which offers a genealogy of U.S. secrecy rhetoric in the early 21st century. Although conspiracy theories and the ‘post-truth’ era are often assumed to be recent historical developments, both national security secrets and the public talk about them have supported white supremacist, cisgender, and colonialist aims. My project adopts a rhetorical approach, contributing to a tradition of scholarly inquiry that investigates public forms of persuasion and the subtle appeals that assure a broader public that democratic institutions are functioning as they should (especially when they are not). Democratic institutions are often reported to be ‘in decline’ when their rhetoric is overwhelmingly opaque and hierarchical. Correspondingly, “transparency” often offers a shorthand for institutions claiming to be working inclusively, although the term is also employed disingenuously, as a façade for unaddressed structural issues.

“Irredentism and its Others”

My project aims to interrogate the historical, structural, and rhetorical conditions that give rise to the contemporary global resurgence and proliferation of irredentist claim making. Irredentism is an argument by a country that a segment of the population of a neighboring sovereign country properly belongs to the former and, therefore, the borders between the two countries should be redrawn. Through a rhetorical study of the irredentist claims and counterclaims surrounding the current Russia-Ukraine war, my goal is to explore both the internal logics of this political development and its implications for the shifting grammar of international relations at a time when the idea of international rule of law is coming under strain from all corners of the world.

“Improvising Relationality”

Improvising Relationality aims to develop and refine a set of improvisational exercises. These exercises explore ways of being in relation with others. They are experiments with ways of being both together and apart, in empathetic intimacy and respectful alterity, in the relational play of mutual dependence and mutual freedom. They also are occasions for grounded critical reflection on forms of relational sociality, and a means of practical critique for two major themes in ethnomusicology: listening and participation. The goal is to develop these exercises into a practical handbook accessible to beginners, accompanied by speculative essays on the contours of the relationships that these practices afford: their power dynamics, their potentials—and, no less, their erasures, exclusions, and blockages. My hope is that these exercises both offer practical methods to foster various kinds of connection in communities, and an occasion for critical reflection on the taken-for granted conditions that condition our everyday interaction.

“Writing at the End of Life: Exploring Legacy Narrative in Palliative Care”

This proposal is for a team-led, mixed-methods research study on a new program to provide legacy services to people with advanced or metastatic cancer diagnosis. Legacy programs assist patients in reviewing their lives and communicating their personal and cultural values, insights, and wishes to future generations in a written or digital format. We propose that the benefits of such a program may be maximized for patients in an outpatient setting, who generally have longer expected survival time and higher functional status than those who require inpatient care. The pilot intervention will be employed across outpatient sites of the University of Minnesota Department of Radiation Oncology, using a pre-post design to assess the program’s impact. Data will also be evaluated for insights about the relationship between storytelling and subjective well-being, including key question such as: How might autobiographical narrative transform the meaning of death for individuals and/or the medical industry? What might these narratives reveal about what it means to be connected to others—particularly to future generations?

FACULTY FELLOWS, FALL 2022

• Erin Durban: Anthropology, College of Liberal Arts, Twin Cities: “Plastic Futures: Transnational Engagements with Waste, Recycling, and Toxicity in the Americas” 
• Siobhan McMahon: School of Nursing, Twin Cities: “Community-based intervention effects on older adults' physical activity and falls”
• Dan Myers: Political Science, College of Liberal Arts, Twin Cities: “When No Politics Are Local: How the nationalization of news consumption changed politics for Americans”
• Benjamin Narvaez: History, Division of Social Science, Morris: “Chinese Migration and the Making of Modern Costa Rica, 1855-1943”
• Nida Sajid: Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, College of Liberal Arts, Twin Cities: “Layers of Contagion: Understanding Social and Ecological Precarity in a Waste Treatment Plant”
• Margaret Werry: Theatre Arts and Dance, College of Liberal Arts, Twin Cities: “The Performing Dead: Public Culture at the Borders of the Human”
   

FACULTY FELLOWS, SPRING 2023

• Shir Alon: Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, College of Liberal Arts, Twin Cities: “Future Imperfect: Fictions and Logics of Security in the Middle East”
• Elaine Auyoung: English, College of Liberal Arts, Twin Cities: “Unselfing: What We Can Ask of the Arts”
• David Chang: History and American Indian Studies, College of Liberal Arts, Twin Cities: “Confluences of History: Enacting Community History with the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians”
• Sheer Ganor: History, College of Liberal Arts, Twin Cities: “In Scattered Formation: German-Speaking Jewry in Displacement”
• Douglas Hartmann: Sociology, College of Liberal Arts, Twin Cities: “Take-A-Knee Nation: Athlete Activism, Mainstream America, and the New Cultural Politics of Sport”
   

INTERDISCIPLINARY DOCTORAL FELLOWS

• Liz Calhoun: Geography, Environment, and Society, College of Liberal Arts, Twin Cities: “Mapping the Future: Constructing Risk and Bias in the Algorithmic Environments of Crime Forecasting Software”
• Shankar CSR: History, College of Liberal Arts, Twin Cities: “After the Conversion: Anti-Caste Buddhism in 20^th-Century Maharashtra (1956-2002)”
• Dewitt King: American Studies, College of Liberal Arts, Twin Cities: “Wrestling with Precarity: The Hustle, The Flow, and The Black Pro Wrestler”
• Valeria Lopez Torres: Graphic Design, College of Design, Twin Cities: “Emotional authenticity in human-artificial companion relationships”
• Nina Peterson: Art History, College of Liberal Arts, Twin Cities: “Ridiculous Contraptions: American Art, Humor, and Machine Technology to Effect Social Change, 1954-1975”
   

VISITING FELLOWS & SCHOLARS IN RESIDENCE

• Ralph L. Crowder III: IAS–Liberal Arts Engagement Hub Community Fellow. Frances E. Thompson Digital Library for Family Research. (Spring 2023)
• Ricardo Velasco: Minnesota Transform Postdoctoral Associate. “Cultural Ecologies of Memory and Symbolic Reparation in Transitional Colombia: A Book and Digital Public Humanities Project”
• Jigna Desai: Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies, College of Liberal Arts, Twin Cities: Scholar in Residence
• Kevin Murphy: History, College of Liberal Arts, Twin Cities: Scholar in Residence

FACULTY FELLOWS, SPRING 2022

• Tracey Deutsch: History, CLA, Twin Cities: “The Julia Child Project”
• Gabriela Spears-Rico: Chicano & Latino Studies, CLA, Twin Cities: “Mestizo Melancholia and the Legacy of Conquest in Michoacan”
• Fayola Jacobs: Urban Planning, HHH, Twin Cities: “Colonizing Climates: The Intersections of Anti-Blackness, Climate Change, and Urban Planning”
• Michelle Phelps: Sociology, CLA, Twin Cities: “Policing the Progressive City: Race, Violence, and the Future of Public Safety in Minneapolis”
• Shaden Tageldin: Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature, CLA, Twin Cities: “The Place of Africa, in Theory: Of Continents and Their Discontents”

FACULTY FELLOWS, FALL 2021

• Benjamin Bigelow: German, Nordic, Slavic & Dutch, CLA, Twin Cities: “Scandinavian Racial Ecologies”
• Ann DuHamel: Music, Humanities Division, Morris: “Prayers for a Feverish Planet: A Musical Exploration of Climate Change”
• Zozan Pehlivan: History, CLA, Twin Cities: “The Political Ecology of Forced Sedentarization: Herd Dependent Peoples, Climate Change, and the Encroaching State (1850-1950)”
• Scott St. George: Geography, Environment and Society, CLA, Twin Cities: “Staring Down the Bottom of a Dry Well: Global Society and the Coming Age of Megadrought”
• Shannon Drysdale Walsh: History, Political Science & International Studies, CLA, Duluth: “Women Confronting Terror: Violence against Women and the State in Central America”

INTERDISCIPLINARY DOCTORAL FELLOWS 2021–2022

• Harsha Anantharaman: Geography, Environment, & Society, CLA, Twin Cities: “The Paradox of Inclusion: The Politics of Caste, Recognition, & Infrastructure Reform in Urban India”
• Nina Medvedeva: Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies, CLA, Twin Cities: “Home in the Sharing Economy”

VISITING FELLOWS

• Cassius Adair: American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Visiting Fellow, 2021–2022: “The Transgender Internet”
• Alexandra Peck: Visiting Scholar of Indigenous Studies; Environmental Stewardship, Place, and Community Initiative, 2021–2022: “Mapping Multivocality: Documenting Changes in the S’Klallam World through ’Ethnogeography‘”
• Ricardo Velasco: Minnesota Transform Postdoctoral Associate, 2021–ongoing: “Cultural Ecologies of Memory and Symbolic Reparation in Transitional Colombia: A Book and Digital Public Humanities Project”
• Sean Walsh: Scholar in Residence, Fall 2021: “Moral Psychology and the Ethics of Perpetrator Risk”

FACULTY FELLOWS, SPRING 2021

• Hassan Abdel Salam, Sociology, CLA, Twin Cities: The Human Rights Fatwas: How Human Rights Influence Orthodox Jurists in their Adjudication of Islamic Law
• Tammy Berberi, French, Humanities Division, Morris: Fixing Meaning? Francophone Disability Studies and the Socio-Imaginative Power of Language
• Jason Kerwin, Applied Economics, CFANS, Twin Cities: Overcoming Procrastination and Other Behavioral Barriers in the HIV Epidemic
• Helen Kinsella, Political Science, CLA-Social Sciences, Twin Cities: War Fatigue: The Biopolitics of Sleep in War
• Jennifer Row, French and Italian, CLA, Twin Cities: The Body Perfect: the Aesthetics of Ableism in the Francophone Early Modern World
• Emily Winderman, Communication Studies, CLA, Twin Cities: Back-Alley Abortion: A History of Sanitary Rhetoric and Reproductive Injustice
   

FACULTY FELLOWS, FALL 2020

• Gail Dubrow, School of Architecture, College of Design, Twin Cities: Memoir as a Mode of Inquiry and Expression in Environmental Design and Planning for Social Justice
• Greta Friedemann-Sanchez, Global Policy, HHH, Twin Cities: From the Battlefield to the Home Front: Harmonizing Security Policies on Intimate Partner Violence in Post-Conflict Colombia
• Kristine Miller, Landscape Architecture, College of Design, Twin Cities: Memoir as a Mode of Inquiry and Expression in Environmental Design and Planning for Social Justice
• Richa Nagar, Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, CLA, Twin Cities: Songs of Departure
• Rachel Hardeman, Health Policy & Management, SPA, Twin Cities: Double Jeopardy: An exploration of the relationship between anti-abortion policy and maternal mortality for Black Birthing People in the US
• Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, Sociology, CLA, Twin Cities: Race and deaths from infectious diseases in the United States, 1900-1950
   

INTERDISCIPLINARY DOCTORAL FELLOWS

• Julia Brokaw, Entomology, CFANS, Twin Cities: Uprooting Assumptions in Pollinator Conservation Policy
• Stephen Ellis, English, CLA, Twin Cities: Making the Case: Legal Curriculum, Literary Culture, and the Cold War
• SeungGyeong (Jade) Ji, Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, CLA, Twin Cities: Rights and Redemption: Politics of Abortion in South Korea 1974-2019
• Emily Mitamura, Political Science, CLA, Twin Cities: Afterliving Mass Violence: Plot, Justice, and the Cambodian Genocide
• Florencia Pech-Cárdenas, Natural Resource Science and Management, CFANS, Twin Cities: Influences of Handicraft Production on Gender, Livelihoods, and Natural Resources Management in Maya Communities
   

FACULTY FELLOWS, SPRING 2020

• Fernando Burga, Urban and Regional Planning, HHH, Twin Cities: Mapping Transportation Accessibility for Culturally Relevant and Healthy Foods in Rural MN: Towards a Mixed-Methods Research Toolkit
• Adam Coon, Humanities, UM-Morris: The Serpent’s Feathers: Nahua Philosophies in Migration
• Kathryn Nuernberger, English, CLA, Twin Cities: The Doctrine of Signatures: Essays
• Carrie Oelberger, Leadership and Management, HHH, Twin Cities: Radical Re-Envisioning for a Just and Equitable Society: Interrogating and Theorizing Private Interests in Prosocial Work
• Jimmy Patiño, Chicano and Latino Studies, CLA, Twin Cities: “Our Oppressions are One, Our Dreams are One”: Black-Brown Solidarities in Movements for Self-Determination
• Ioana Vartolomei Pribiag, French and Italian, CLA, Twin Cities: Shards: Spectacular Fragmentation in Francophone Postcolonial Literature
• Elana Shever, Scholar in Residence, Anthropology, Colgate University: Finding Our Beasts: Encountering Dinosaurs and Science in the American West
• Kari Smalkoski, Community Engagement Fellow, Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, CLA, Twin Cities: Minnesota Youth Story Squad

FACULTY FELLOWS, FALL 2020

• June Carbone, Law School, Twin Cities: From Tiers to Ladders: A Feminist Theory of Power
• Cosette Creamer, Political Science, CLA, Twin Cities: In Courts We Trust: The Unseen Role of Legal Bureaucrats in Human Rights Courts
• V. V. Ganeshananthan, English, CLA, Twin Cities: Movement: A Novel
• Kate Lockwood Harris, Communications Studies, CLA, Twin Cities: Communicating Violence in the Academy: A Case Study of the 2015 Anti-Racist Protests and Backlash at the University of Missouri
• Enid Logan, Sociology, CLA, Twin Cities: American Indian Racialization and the Sociological Study of Race
• Jennifer Marshall, Art History, CLA, Twin Cities: William Edmondson: Life and Work
• Elana Shever, Scholar in Residence, Anthropology, Colgate University: Finding Our Beasts: People, Dinosaurs, and Science in the American West

INTERDISCIPLINARY DOCTORAL FELLOWS

• Ateeb Ahmed, Geography, Environment, and Society, CLA, Twin Cities: Between Speculation and Dispossession: Pakistan Military's Urban Coup d'Etat
• Deniz Coral, Anthropology, CLA, Twin Cities: The Humorous Reaction to Trepidation: Jokes on the Trading Floor
• Hana Maruyama, American Studies, CLA, Twin Cities: Alien Nation: The Role of Japanese Americans During WWII Incarceration in Native Dispossession
• Hannah Ramer, Natural Resources Science and Management, CFANS, Twin Cites: (Re)Imagining the City: Urban Agriculture, Policy, & Social Justice in Minneapolis

FACULTY FELLOWS, SPRING 2019

• Hakim Abderrezak, French and Italian, CLA, Twin Cities: Seametery: Migrants, Refugees, and the Mediterranean
• Malinda Lindquist, History, CLA, Twin Cities: The Politics of Youth: Education, Achievement Gaps, and the Construction of Black Childhood, 1940-1990
• Francis Shen, Law School, Twin Cities: Brain-Based Memory Detection and the Law
• Eun-Kyung Suh, Art and Design, School of Fine Arts, Duluth: Refugees’ Resettlement: Geographic Patterns in Sculpture
• Teresa Swartz, Sociology, CLA, Twin Cities: Not Just Child’s Play: Race and the Reproduction of Inequality In and Through Youth Activities

FACULTY FELLOWS, FALL 2018

• Natalie Belsky, History, CLA, Duluth: Encounters in the East: Evacuees in the Soviet Hinterland during the Second World War
• Elizabeth Heger Boyle, Sociology, CLA, Twin Cities: Abortion Politics in Uruguay, Peru, and Nicaragua: Explaining Disparate Outcomes
• Siobhan Craig, English, CLA, Twin Cities: The Fourth Shore: Empire and Visuality in the Fascist-Era Italian Colonies
• Thomas Genova, Spanish, Humanities Division, Morris: Borders of Brazil: Euclides da Cunha and ‘Latin America’
• Mai Na Lee, History, CLA, Twin Cities: The Hmong Kingdom at Dragon Capital (Long Cheng): Vang Pao’s Alliance with the CIA, 1960-75
• Marek Oziewicz, Curriculum and Instruction, CEHD, Twin Cities: Bloodlands Fiction: Soviet Trauma in Young People’s Literature

INTERDISCIPLINARY DOCTORAL FELLOWS, 2018-2019

• Ketaki Jaywant, History, CLA, Twin Cities: Caste as a Site of Social Change: Mapping 19-th Century Anti-Caste Politics in Western India
• Maria Mendez Gutierrez, Political Science, CLA, Twin Cities: The Visual Economy of Violence: Transnational Gangs in the U.S.-Central American Security Imaginary
• Joseph Whitson, American Studies, CLA, Twin Cities: #Explore: Outdoor Retailers, Social Media, and Assaults on Indigenous Sovereignty in the Contemporary United States

GRAND CHALLENGE RESEARCH FELLOWS, 2018-2019

Just and Equitable Communities 

• Bianet Castellanos, American Studies, CLA, TC
• Carl Flink, Theatre Arts & Dance, CLA, TC
• Sumanth Gopinath, Music, CLA, TC
• Susan Mason, Epidemiology & Community Health, School of Public Health, TC
• Richa Nagar, Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, CLA, TC
• Ross VeLure Roholt, Social Work, CEHD, TC

Clean Water and Sustainable Ecosystems

• Oscar Garza, Pharmacy Care & Health Systems, AHC, TC
• Mary Hermes, Curriculum & Instruction, CEHD, TC
• Kimberly Hill-Malvick, Civil, Environmental, and Geo-Engineering, CSE, TC
• Daniela Sandler, Architecture, CDES, TC
• Diane Willow, Art, CLA, TC

FACULTY FELLOWS, SPRING 2016

• Marc Bellemare, Applied Economics, CFANS, Twin Cities: The Political Economy of Food Price Stabilization
• Jennifer Gomez Menjivar, Foreign Languages and Literatures, CLA, Duluth: Tropical Tongues: Language Ideologies, Endangerment, and Minority Languages in Belize 
• Annie Hill, Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, CLA, Twin Cities: Sex Trafficking, Migration, and Law 
• Michael Lower, History, CLA, Twin Cities: Violence and Religious Difference in the Premodern Mediterranean
• William Salmon, Linguistics, CLA, Duluth: Tropical Tongues: Language Ideologies, Endangerment, and Minority Languages in Belize 
• Roozbeh Shirazi, Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development, CEHD, Twin Cities: There is Always Something to Prove: Transnational Youth, Sociopolitical Belonging, and Education in the Twin Cities'

FACULTY FELLOWS, FALL 2015

• Michael Gallope, Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature, CLA, Twin Cities: New Ontologies of Sonic Writing (Fall 2015)
• Cindy Garcia, Theater Arts & Dance, CLA, Twin Cities: How To Make It to the Salsa Dance Floor (Fall 2015)
• Sarah Parkinson, Humphrey School of Public Affairs, Twin Cities: Organizational Emergence in Crisis: Networks, Neuroscience, and Military Organizations in the Middle East (Fall 2015)
• Helena Pohlandt-McCormick, History, CLA, Twin Cities: The Graves of Dimbaza: Reconsidering the Resilience of Race in the Post-Apartheid Present (Fall 2016)
• Amit Yahav, English, CLA, Twin Cities: Moments: Qualitative Time in Eighteenth-Century Culture (Fall 2015)
• Kyungsoo Yoo, Soil, Water, & Climate, CFANS, Twin Cities: Agrarian Expansion, Immigration and the Emergence of Earthworm-Engineered Forests: 9,000 years of Human-Natural History in Glaciated Regions of N. Europe and N. America (Fall 2015)

COMMUNITY OF SCHOLARS GRADUATE FELLOWS, SPRING 2016

• Kasey Keeler, American Studies, Twin Cities: Indigenous Suburbs: Settler-Colonialism, Housing Policy, and the Erasure of American Indians from Suburbia 
• Alicia Lazzarini, Geography, Environmetn, and Society: ‘Açúcar nem Sempre Doce’: Reinvestments, Land, and Gendered Labor in a ‘New’ Mozambique 

SAWYER SEMINAR POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS, 2015-2016

• Laurie Moberg, Anthropology, CLA, Twin Cities: Fluid Landscapes: Materializing the Future after Natural Disasteres in Thailand (Sawyer Seminar Graduate Fellow, Fall 2015-Spring 2017)

SCHOLARS AND ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE, SPRING 2016

• Rachel Jendrzejewski, Playwright and Interdisciplinary Artist: Making Reality: Complication Popular Definitions of Story in Contemporary Performance 
• Beth Mercer-Taylor, Sustainability Education, Institute on the Environment: Change the System, Not the Climate 
• Guillermo Narváez, Humphrey School of Public Affairs: Boundaries at Work with American Indian Communities 

SCHOLARS AND ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE, FALL 2015

• Ursula Lang, Geography, University of Glasgow: Cultivating Everyday Life: Yards, Nature, and Time 
• Presley Martin, Sculpture and Installation Artist: Dye Buckthorn Dye 
• Jennifer Row, French, Boston University: Queer Velocities: Speeds of Sex on the Early Modern Stage 

VISITING SCHOLAR, FALL 2015

• Bill Moseley, Geography, Macalester College: Can Markets & Technology Solve the Scourge of Global Hunger? The New Green Revolution for Africa, Marginal Communities, and Rural Malnutrition 

FACULTY FELLOWS, SPRING 2015

• Matteo Convertino, Environmental Health Sciences, Public Health, Twin Cities: HumNat-Health: From People, To People. Theory, Computers, Art (Spring 2015)
• Katherine Hayes, Anthropology, CLA, Twin Cities: Bohemian Flats Public Memory Project: Archaeology, Public History, and Heritage (Spring 2015)
• Kathryn Milun, Sociology and Anthropology, CLA, Duluth: Creating Sustainable Infrastructure with Commons-Based Design: The Solar Commons Project and Beyond (Spring 2015)
• Leslie Morris, German, Scandinavian, and Dutch, CLA, Twin Cities: She Did Not Speak (Spring 2015)
• Erik Redix, American Indian Studies, CLA, Duluth: Deluge and Bakweyawaa: American Colonialism in the Twentieth Century and the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe (Spring 2015)
• David Valentine, Anthropology, CLA, Twin Cities: Off the Rock: Human Futures in Outer Space (Spring 2015)

FACULTY FELLOWS, FALL 2014

• Elaine Auyoung, English, College of Liberal Arts, Twin Cities: The Suggestiveness of Realist Novels (Fall 2014)
• Mark Collier, Philosophy, Morris: Experimental Philosophy (Fall 2014)
• Katharine Gerbner, History, CLA, Twin Cities: Christian Slavery: Protestant Missions and Slave Conversions in the Atlantic World, 1660-1760 (Fall 2014)
• Njeri Githire, African American and African Studies, CLA, Twin Cities: (In)edible Ideologies: Food, Identity, and the (Post)Colonial Subject in African Literary and Cultural Expression (Fall 2014)
• Dominic Taylor, Theater Arts and Dance, CLA, Twin Cities: Ice Man - Black in White: Black Bodies on Stage in Classic White Roles (Fall 2014)

SAWYER SEMINAR POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS, 2014-2015

• Nenette Luarca-Shoaf, Art Historian and Curator: The Mississippi River in Antebellum Visual Culture
• Jane Mazack, Water Research Science Graduate Program, Twin Cities: Entomology and Stream Ecology in Southeast Minnesota
• Laurie Moberg, Anthropology, CLA, Twin Cities: Fluid Landscapes: Materializing the Future After Natural Disasters in Thailand

COMMUNITY OF SCHOLARS GRADUATE FELLOWS, 2014-2015

• Jamal Adam, Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development, Twin Cities: Identity Development of Somali College Students
• Jameson R. Sweet, History, CLA, Twin Cities: The Mixed-Blood Moment: Race, Land, and Law Among Dakota Mixed-Bloods in the Nineteeth Century
• Maiyia Yang, Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development, Twin Cities: Educational Identities of Karen Refugee Women in the Twin Cities Metro Area

VISITING FELLOWS, 2014-2015

• Emily Johnson, Choreograper and Director, Catalyst Dances: SHORE
• Anaïs Nony, French and Italian, Moving Image Studies, CLA, Twin Cities: Technical Memory: Thierry Kuntzel's Video Art and the Early Web Experience in France
• Karin Vélez, History, Macalester College: Catholic Landings in Frontier Zones: Jesuits, Converts, and the Flying House of Loreto, 1290-1750

VISITING FELLOW, SPRING 2015

• Ryland Angel, Counter-tenor and Composer: The Call