2022-2023 Dean's Humanities Fellows

English and American Literature

I am a first year PhD student and part-time culture writer interested in popular culture and internet trends, including emerging forms of digital communities. My research interests are engaged with the shaping force of institutions on subjectivity. My interest in public engagement comes from a desire to think about how public institutions and projects, from museums to park murals to online communities (like Discord for eg), can positively transform individuals and communities stuck between identities. 

English and American Literature 

I am a doctoral student focusing on Romanticism and histories of science and poet living in Brooklyn, NY. My interest in the Public Humanities is informed by my love of poetry and my professional background in the artworld. I am excited to work toward an interdisciplinary approach to the humanities that expands well beyond the academy and charts new directions for the generation and proliferation of knowledge. 

Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies

My doctoral project engages with the process of post-colonial 'identity-making' by examining Egyptian film of the 1960s as an inquiry into the paradigmatic silencing of the ethnocultural minorities that constitute the Upper Egyptian farmer (falaḥ). My research examines the expressions of modernity, indigeneity, and race to better explore the specific set of norms cohered around 'national authenticity' in order to maintain the Egyptian state, with particular emphasis on the nationalized film industry as a means to project a codified national identity in accordance with Nasserite ideals.

English 

I center my public humanities work in the construction of community archives and the practice of radical librarianship. I am currently the chief librarian for the International Center for MultiGenerational Legacies of Trauma (ICMGLT).

Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies

I am an Italian-Lebanese PhD student in the department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies where I study the History and mechanics of sensory memory in relation to social movements and conceptions of space and time. The Public Humanities initiative is a perfect way for me to give my research an echo outside of the academe and guarantee my work remains grounded in contemporary realities. 

Institute of French Studies and History 

I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where decommissioned steel mills, furniculars, row homes and railroad tracks were a physical testament to the city's industrial past and a reminder that history is very much alive and with us wherever we go. I'm very interested in helping to make history more accessible and legible to the public so that they can understand the various histories that shape their own lives and present conditions.

English

I am interested in using the public humanities to create experiences that can help sustain communities most afflicted by the toxicities of the present, through projects that put them in contact with the desire-filled pasts that can help them imagine utopian futures. 

Comparative Literature 

My research concentrates upon migration and human rights, the racial imagination, epistemologies of the human, new materialisms, affect theory, historiography and the archive, and systems of linguistic and visual signification. The scope of my work encompasses the postcolonial Atlantic and Mediterranean, with particular regard to Black, Indigenous, and Maghrebi thought; and I hope to produce critical literature on borders, mobility, race, human rights discourse, and international law.

Spanish and Portuguese

Before coming to New York I used to work as a teacher, a literature and theater theory workshop facilitator, a cultural manager, and sometimes as an artist myself. The interventions that I created with the people I used to work with often resulted in very diverse interactions with audiences. This sparked my interest in reasearching and practicing new ways to relate, manage, curate and create for them. 

American Studies

With the intention of bridging public interest and scholarly expertise, I am invested in writing public-facing criticism that facilitates generative and meaningful discussion about our shared social world.