At HRI, we respectfully acknowledge that we are on the lands of the Peoria, Kaskaskia, Piankashaw, Wea, Miami, Mascoutin, Odawa, Sauk, Mesquaki, Kickapoo, Potawatomi, Ojibwe, and Chickasaw Nations. These Nations were forcefully removed from their traditional territories and these lands continue to carry the stories of these Nations and their struggles for survival and identity. As part of a land-grant institution, we have a particular obligation to recognize the peoples of these lands and the histories of dispossession upon which the university rests.
In keeping with the spirit of land acknowledgment statements, we also recognize that these histories are both shared with and distinct from those of African American, Latinx, Asian American, and Pacific Islander communities, among others.
As humanists, we recognize that the past is not past, and that no field or arena of inquiry is exempt from the responsibility of addressing the legacies of settler colonialism, enslavement, and their contemporary manifestations well beyond acknowledgments such as this.
Thus, this statement is a demonstration of our ongoing commitment to supporting the work of Indigenous scholars and communities. It is also a reminder of how accounting for Indigenous erasure and survivance makes visible the urgency of imagining change as collaboratively and collectively as possible. Let us, then, together envision what Muskogee Creek/Cherokee poet Joy Harjo calls “a map to the next world.”
Director’s Q&A
Think Again: Shining a light on the multifaceted “jewel box” and toolbox of humanities research
We are at an inflection point in the humanities. How is HRI exploring and responding to these questions?
Narratives about the decline of majors and tenure-track jobs in the humanities have been around since the 1970s. But the last few years have seen an uptick in the already decades-long US public discourse about the humanities-in-decline. The New Yorker ran two pieces in one month last year about “the end of the English major” and upheavals in the discipline of history. Meanwhile, assaults on Critical Race Theory rages, making debates about the future of the humanities in higher education part of a polarized national political landscape. This is to say nothing of the question of how ChatGPT is said to threaten the college History or English essay.
In the midst of this crisis talk, public humanities work is flourishing all over the country. At HRI we spend a lot of time working to imagine how we might re-think the public humanities— not only as a set of practices coming out of the university and aimed at public audiences, but co-created and co-designed with and by communities who have a wealth of knowledge they work and live by every day. We’ve gone from piloting undergraduate-focused programs which have community connections— like Humanities in Action and the Humanities Research Lab (HRL)— to embedding them in what we routinely do. In fact, one of the biggest shifts at HRI has been toward undergraduate students, thanks to our partnerships with We CU, led by Emily Stone and Katie Shumway, and the Office of Undergraduate Research, led by Karen Rodriguez’G.
Thinking again, at whatever scale, is always a work in progress. As our colleague and collaborator in the Graduate College Derek Attig reminds us, humanists have a lot to teach, but they have a lot to un/learn as well.
This past year we hosted a panel in the fall which highlighted the work of three amazing community leaders (Teddie Hill, Champaign County Christian Health Center; Mel Grantham, WIN Recovery; and Janice Walker, First Followers)
who shared the joys and struggles of what it means to serve those who live beyond the so-called safety net. In spring semester, we sponsored a conversation about the Tiny Homes Project, which featured Executive Director of Champaign County Health Care Consumers Claudia Lennhoff and Executive Associate Chancellor for Public Engagement Dr. Wanda Ward in conversation at the Urbana Free Library. We are planning an event which features our ongoing partnership with Sola Gratia Farm and the College of Education for spring 2025 (see p. 13).
The HRI research theme for 2024–25 is “Think Again…” In what ways has the institute been “thinking again?”
The idea for “Think Again…” came to me quite a few years ago, when our former colleague Renée Trilling posted on social media post about the ways that gender fluidity and difference were not new phenomena but had deep histories in medieval languages and grammars. Her example helped me to remember the way that all research, regardless of discipline or interdiscipline, asks us to think again—about received wisdom, the boundaries of knowledge, the locus of power, or the genealogies of what might feel “natural.” In this STEM world, the humanities, it seems to me, not only asks us to think again about so much of what passes for given, or even innovative, but to demand that our expertise and methods be taken seriously. Ultimately, “think again” is—to recall the linguistic context of Renee’s earlier insights—an imperative. Just as the humanities are imperative to what we know and who we think we are, now.
At HRI, we’ve been rethinking some of the boundary-lines that silo research and practice, faculty and students, and humanities folks from those who may not identify as such. Our Mellon grant activity has enabled some of these new connections. Humanities Without Walls, now entering its tenth year, has brought the ethos of “reciprocity and redistribution” to a lot
Adrian Burgos, Jr., Antoinette Burton, and David Maraniss at Sporting Publics symposium.
Students Hora Behnejad and Ivon Guzaro Cruz at HRL Showcase.
of what we do now, especially when it comes to communitybased work. That “R&R” practice shapes the Humanities in Action program and the Humanities Research Lab experience, both of which involve community partners.
Interseminars, now in its third and final year, has definitely expanded our sense of who is hailed by the promise of humanities subject matter and methodology: faculty conveners have come from subject areas beyond “legacy” humanities departments and have attracted students and audiences from multiple colleges across campus. And the Odyssey Project continually reminds us that history, literature, art history, and philosophy land in different ways with incomeeligible adult students in Champaign-Urbana than they might with residential undergraduates at Illinois. We definitely have cause to think again about who the humanities is for, and who speaks for it, in the 2020s.
Our programming this year will track that imperative in a variety of ways. We open our yearlong consideration of “think again” with a talk by Rebecca Walkowitz, professor of English and provost at Barnard College, who will speak on her current research on “the new multilingualism”—a brief for the importance of language instruction and expertise that runs the gamut of what some call “foreign” languages to idioms like coding. We’re also organizing some “Dinner and DH” events with Dr. Mary Ton from the University Library for graduate students who may be curious about digital humanities but lack formal engagement with the field. We’ll be asking them to consider rethinking their work and even their graduate training through the resources and other affordances Mary will share.
If HRI is evidence of how available the humanities remain for reinvention, it’s tempting to think of it as something of a jewel box. We certainly do bring precious ideas and beautiful performances to life for audiences that draw in campus and community and beyond. But like the humanities itself, HRI is also a powerful toolbox, offering models and methods for how to realize the promise of interdisciplinary and collaborative
IN MEMORIAM
Luisa Elena Delgado
work that can have an impact on how we see the world— models and methods that are tried and tested every day, both on stage and behind the scenes in Levis. What you see out in front masks the complex infrastructure which undergirds, and powers, all that we aim to do. My hope is that “Think Again...” will compel you to remember the backstage and all those who make humanities endeavors at HRI look so good.
What moment or moments inspired you from the past year?
There was so much, it’s hard to choose! All the events around Deke Weaver’s “CETACEAN (The Whale),” especially Pauline Gumbs’ visit to campus. Joy Harjo’s CultureTalk with Jenny Davis and Harjo’s public reading were, well, luminous. Both rooms pulsed with energy and love. And Odyssey graduation, always inspiring, was one of the best ever this year— despite the fact that we are saying a fond farewell to Michelle Awad, Odyssey’s associate director, as she finds new adventures on the Continent. Meanwhile, if you are curious how people are trying to think again about the topics, audiences, and stakes of their work this coming year, join us for the HRI events which feature a variety of approaches to that question. (See the calendar of events, p. 12.)
In March 2024 we joined our colleagues in Spanish and Portuguese, in the School of Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, and from all around the world in sorrow over the death of Professor Elena Delgado. A former HRI fellow, a dedicated HRI Advisory Committee member, and a passionate advocate for the humanities, Elena brought her inimitable energy and conviction to every conversation as well as to the many projects, scholarly and administrative, which shaped her incredible career. As we mourn her loss, we see her impact at Illinois—and beyond—everywhere we turn.
Joy Harjo and Antoinette at Inside Scoop.
Campus Fellows, 2024–25
HRI Faculty Fellows
Angela J. Aguayo
Media and Cinema Studies
“Collective Matters: Documentary Film Practice and Public Engagement in the US, 1970-Present”
Toby C. Beauchamp
Gender and Women’s Studies
“Trans Studies for Grim Times”
Angela Calcaterra
American Indian Studies
“Bearing Arms: US Gun Violence and Indigenous Relationality”
Jamie Jones
English
“The Affordances of Energy: Imagining Fossil Fuels in the 19th and 20th Centuries”
Charlesia McKinney
English
“Pandemic Pleasure Pedagogies: BlackAmerican Women’s Strategies of Survival”
Edward O’Byrn
African American Studies
“Existence Precedes Enslavement”
Alexia Williams
Religion and African American Studies
“Race to Sainthood: Roman Catholicism & the US Racial Imagination”
HRI Graduate Student Fellows 2025–26 Campus Fellowship Call: Story
Alana
Ackerman
Anthropology
“Rethinking War Across Borders: Violence, Refuge, and the ‘Colombian Armed Conflict’ in Quito, Ecuador”
Chelsea Birchmier
Psychology
“‘Searching for the Nexus’ Between Two Movements: Fight for $15 and Possibilities for Black Worker Struggle in St. Louis, Missouri”
Sharayah L. Cochran
Art History
“Dangerous Photographs: What’s the Harm in Documentary?”
Anna Sophia Flood English
“Slavery’s Eerie Presence: The Graphic Gothic’s Capturing of Dark Histories and Distorted Futures”
Lázaro García Angulo
Spanish and Portuguese
“‘Yet Another Woman-Man’: Representations of Gender Nonconformity in Spain, 1880-1939”
August D.
Hoffman
Anthropology
“The Bite that Binds: Care, Violence and Liminality in Wolf Sanctuary”
and Place
In spite of the impact of global economic and cultural forces on our lives—and of course because of it— attention to the particularity of place remains key to how humanists and artists think about the world. How does your work engage with place-based experiences, histories, performative cultures, languages, politics, literatures? What does storytelling that emerges from specific places and spaces contribute to how we apprehend the visual, the material, the political, the queer, or the orthodox?
“Document-Based and Oral Histories of Diné Experiences in the Mormon Indian Student Placement Program, 1945–2000”
Place often takes root through story, but it is as often made in the telling. How can storytelling and story-making create place and its attachments—or unravel it, or make it legible to new audiences? What is the role of placebased story in how we grapple with war, social movements, equity work, fantasy, political ideology, art practice, social media, ecological crisis, and/or the land grant university itself? And what is “place” beyond the local, exactly?
HRI invites proposals which engage the intersection of place and story in a variety of mediums— narrative, textual, maker-oriented, graphic, and more. We look forward to learning from humanities- and arts-based researchers who are working with place at any scale and in any number of forms. We’re interested in the geography closest in or the farthest out; in stories that stick close to home or those that carry home with them as they move.
HRI welcomes applications from all disciplines and departments with an interest in humanities and humanitiesinflected research. We are especially interested in fostering interdisciplinary work, both within the humanistic disciplines and between the humanities and the arts. For eligibility, terms, and application guidelines, visit go.illinois. edu/CampusFellows Applications are due December 6, 2024.
Interseminars Initiative 2024–25
Funded by the Mellon Foundation, the Interseminars Initiative has supported three cohorts of graduate fellows and faculty conveners, each selected through a competitive application process. The second cohort—“Improvise and Intervene”— will present a culminating experience this fall (see p. 14).
Interseminars represents the latest thinking on how best to practice a genuinely collaborative and equitable commitment to interdisciplinary graduate training in the arts and humanities in the public research university of the 21st century, particularly for students historically underrepresented in American higher education.
In addition to the Mellon Foundation, Interseminars is supported by the Graduate College, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the College of Fine and Applied Arts, and the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation.
THIRD COHORT LAUNCHED
The third (and final) Interseminars project, titled “Collisions across Color Lines: Reconsidering Racism, Movements, and Epistemes in the Americas,” is led by faculty members Erik McDuffie (African American Studies and History), Gilberto Rosas (Anthropology and Latina/Latino Studies) and Gisela Sin (Political Science).
The project is an invitation to work collectively in a critical interrogation of deeply embedded intersecting structures of race and inequality and how they periodically erupt in the Americas, if not the globe.
As the group’s project description states: “At stake in this Interseminar are the collisions between lived experiences of race and racism; their relation with the movement of people, ideas, and revolutionary imaginaries that span the hemisphere; and the structures within which knowledge is produced and reproduced. We envision ‘collisions’ as a productive lens for critically exploring how activists, artists, and other intellectuals reckon with regional epistemes and (re)making of race and racism as they relate to antiBlackness, anti-Indigeneity, the vexed and complicated position of other impoverished and racialized mestizo or other ‘Brown’ communities, particularly migrants and those otherwise crossing international boundaries, and related formations of oppression, gender and sexualities foremost among them.”
The project will be student-centered, creating a creative and collaborative space in which fellows can actively participate in shaping what they believe graduate education should look like. Ultimately, the project aims to forge a broad and inclusive community of intellectuals from across the arts, humanities, and humanistic social sciences, committed to transforming graduate education, to advancing social justice, and to building a better future world.
The cohort had an intensive this past summer. Watch for Interseminars-related speakers this academic year and keep up with the cohort’s activities at HRI’s research blog Inquiry: go.illinois.edu/HRI-Inquiry
Faculty Conveners
Erik McDuffie African American Studies and History
Graduate Student Fellows
Yasmine Adams Anthropology
Grace Eunhyn Bae Art Education
Jose Figueroa Díaz Spanish, Literature and Culture
Gilberto Rosas Anthropology and Latina/ Latino Studies
Gisela Sin Political Science
Omar Agustin Hernandez Anthropology
Samantha Jenae Jones Design for Responsible Innovation
Nik Owens Dance
Ann Xiaoxu Pe Comparative Literature
Leonardo Ventura History
Tooma H. Zaghloul Urban and Regional Planning
Photo Credit - Edward Riddell
Summer Faculty Fellows
Course Development 2024
Amy Clay French and Italian)
French 103 and 104: Intermediate French I and II
Research 2024
Angela J. Aguayo
Media and Cinema Studies
“Collective Matters: The History of Documentary Production in the US, 1970- present”
Laura Hetrick
Art Education, Art and Design
“Auto-ethnography of an Autistic Professor: Navigating a Neurodiverse Academic Life”
Daniel Nabil Maroun
French and Italian
“Filial Failures: Writing Queer Kinship and Community in Contemporary France”
Cynthia Kocher Theatre
Theatre 401: Broadway Stage Management
Daniel Leon Classics
CLCV 250: Sports and Society in Ancient Greece and Rome
Tess McNulty
English
“Content culture: Genres of Virality in the Twenty-First Century”
Rini Bhattacharya Mehta
Comparative and World Literature/ Religion
“Unreason and Capital: Calcutta’s Long 19th Century”
Kimberly C. Ransom
Education Policy, Organization & Leadership
“The Historic Pickensville Rosenwald School and Community Center”
Pollyanna Rhee
Landscape Architecture
“Quality of Life: A History of a Modern Aspiration”
Nisi Sturgis Theatre
“The Verona Cycle”
Research Clusters 2024–25
Humanities Research Lab Course Fall 2024
Environmental Humanities
Co-Directors:
John Levy Barnard (English/Comparative and World Literature)
Pollyanna Rhee (Landscape Architecture)
Ethical Methods of Community Engagement in Design and the Arts Director:
The Humanities Research Lab (HRL) initiative is an opportunity for faculty in the humanities or related fields to re-fashion an existing undergraduate course into a local, community-based research experience. A partnership between HRI and the Office of Undergraduate Research, the selected HRL courses are offered to undergraduates of any major.
HIST 312: Immigrant America
Yuridia Ramírez History
Humanities
in Action Scholars
The Humanities in Action program is an initiative in collaboration with We CU. The program provides support to undergraduate humanities students who are interested in pursuing community engagement opportunities in Champaign-Urbana.
Alexandra Carbajal
Speech and Hearing Science, Class of 2026
Courtney Dillon
Pre-Law: Sociology and Journalism, Class of 2025
Jimena López
Spanish, Class of 2026
Victoria Martinez
English and Political Science (International Relations), Class of 2026
Lillian Webb
History and Anthropology, Class of 2026
Humanities Without Walls
An Ecosystem for Exploration: The Legacy of HWW’s Career Diversity Workshop
Summer 2023 marked the final Humanities Without Walls Career Diversity summer workshop. Held annually since 2015, the workshop was a multi-week, interactive experience for PhD students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences who were interested in exploring careers beyond the tenure track.
Linda García Merchant (2016), Michelle May-Curry (2018), Kai Harris (2019), and Brandon Render (2021) shared their experiences with the HWW workshop and the enduring legacy of the program. Visit go.illinois.edu/HWWFellows to read the full story.
Co-Written Chapter on Public Humanities
Antoinette Burton (HWW PI), Jenny L. Davis (HWW consultant on ethical methods and reciprocal community partnerships), and Margaret (Peggy) L. Brennan (HWW associate director) co-wrote a chapter that was published in the Routledge Companion to Publicly Engaged Humanities Scholarship. Titled “Reciprocity and Redistribution: Methodologies for Rethinking Public and Community-Based Humanities Research,” the essay offers a history of how Humanities Without Walls has taken up the promises and challenges of the public humanities.
Burton, Davis, and Brennan chart the development of “R&R” methodologies in the Grand Research Challenge awards—telling the story of what interdisciplinary collaborative grantmaking has become over the life of the grant since 2015, as a result of both recent convulsive social and political changes and of the longstanding underlying conditions of economic inequality and racial injustice that are an ongoing feature of contemporary life. In the process, they reflect on the stakes of the “publics” in the public humanities at this historical juncture.
University Presses Retreat
In July, HWW held a two-day University Presses Retreat at HRI, hosting research teams and press representatives as they explored how their community engaged work might find a home in book format. Four Grand Research Challenge teams met with editors from the University of Illinois, University of Iowa, University of Minnesota, and Northwestern University presses. The participating research teams are each focused on critical project goals, such as documenting the health and cultural impacts of Long COVID, designing curriculum for community education in the wake of mass school closures, Native American cultural revitalization, and urban environmental justice movements. The retreat program surveyed the stages of book publication, different aims and audiences of academic, trade, crossover, and open access books, financial and contracting considerations, and writing collaboratively across diverse research teams.
Disrupting Norms in Graduate Education
In conversation with HWW Consultant on Career Diversity: Dr. Derek Attig, assistant dean for career & professional development in the Graduate College at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
“Humanities graduate students are often immersed in a set of stories of collapse, limitation, and a kind of hopelessness—I think understandably given the state of the academy and structural forces there. But I think sometimes they can bring that inadvertently to the story they’re telling about themselves to people outside of those contexts. Some of what I try to do in working with them is to disrupt that a little bit.” Visit go.illinois.edu/attig to read full conversation
New HWW Colleagues
University of Illinois
Urbana-Champaign
Humanities Without Walls Postdoctoral Fellow in Public Humanities
Jordan Woodward joins the HWW team in fall 2024 as the Postdoctoral Research Associate in Public Humanities. She received a PhD in English— Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy from The Ohio State University. In her HWW role, Woodward will spend the two-year term in residence at the University of Illinois UrbanaChampaign, participating for the first year of appointment in the yearlong Humanities Research Institute (HRI) Fellows Seminar. Woodward will also pursue a communitybased research project rooted in the HWW grant’s guiding methodologies of reciprocity and redistribution.
Penn State University
Humanities Without Walls Postdoctoral Scholar
Kimba Stahler joins the Penn State Humanities Institute as a Postdoctoral Scholar in fall 2024.
Stahler is a historian of US women’s and gender history and social justice movements. She specializes in twentieth century antipoverty and feminist movements. Her research interests include participatory democracy, alliance formation among grassroots activists and organizations, and identity politics.
Marquette University Alum Engagement Coordinator
Jordan Mason joined the HWW team this year as the HWW alum engagement coordinator. In this role, Jordan is responsible for testing the establishment of an HWW Alumni Group connecting the now nearly 230 Predoctoral Career Diversity Workshop Fellowship alums to one another once the grant funded portion of the consortium ends.
HWW Summer Bridge Experience
Returning for its fourth year, the Summer Bridge experience is a continued collaborative partnership between HWW, We CU, and Dr. Derek Attig, assistant dean for career and professional development at the University of Illinois’ Graduate College. Five humanities graduate students participated this year, collaborating with community partners, exploring various career paths, and building skills.
Participants and Partners
• Abigail Houkes (Anthropology) | The Immigration Project
• Virginia Leach (Sociology) | Greater Community AIDS Project of East Central Illinois
• Dale Mize (History) | The Land Connection
• Aubrie Powell (Musicology) | Community Center for the Arts (C4A)
• Andrés Martínez Ruiz (Art Education) | Krannert Art Museum
Grand Research Challenge Projects at Illinois
“Communiversities as education without walls: Building coalitions for liberatory education through the humanities” PI: Asif Wilson (Education)
Dr. Asif Wilson hosted a documentary viewing and panel discussion on-campus at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on March 28, 2024. Towards Inquiry, Moving In Solidarity With Your Students is a 23-minute film that follows a day in the life of Seth, a high school social studies teacher who uses inquiry as a method for his students to critically read and transform their worlds.
Photo Credit - Doug Peconge
“Reclaiming Stories: (Re)Connecting Indigenous Painted Hides to Communities through Collaborative Conversations” PI: Robert Morrissey (History)
From January 30 through June 8, 2024, Minohsayaki ‘Painted Robes’ are on view at the Richard and Carole Cocks Art Museum at Miami University. This exhibition is curated by the Peewaaliaki ‘Peoria Indian’ and Myaamiaki ‘Miami Indian’ people, in partnership with the Myaami Center, the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, and the Peoria Tribe of Oklahoma. This exhibition is supported, in part, by the Reclaiming Stories project, which received funding from the Humanities Without Walls Grand Research Challenge initiative in 2022.
2024–25 Calendar of Events
2024
SEPTEMBER
INTERSEMINARS
Gerald Horne
Moores Professor of History & African American Studies University of Houston “Armed Struggle? Reflections on U.S. History Through My Latest Book”
Supported by the Mellon Foundation.
HRI OPENING RECEPTION
Reception and Celebration
THINK AGAIN
AI and the Human Condition: A Socratic Dialogue
BOOK DISCUSSION LUNCH
The Blue Period: Black Writing in the Early Cold War
Jesse McCarthy (English and African American Studies, Harvard University) and Christopher Freeburg, (English)
Cosponsored by the English Department.
LECTURE
Jesse McCarthy
English and African American Studies, Harvard University “The Emancipation of Sensibility”
Sponsored by the English Department.
INTERSEMINARS
“Beneath Our Feet: Grounded Space, Place, and Worldmaking”
Supported by the Mellon Foundation.
HRI AT ISR
Faculty Lunch Talk: Jamie Jones
English
Cosponsored by Illinois Street Residence Hall LivingLearning Communities.
THINK AGAIN
Humanities Indicators
Robert Townsend, Program Director for Humanities, Arts, and Culture, American Academy of Arts & Sciences
|
THINK AGAIN
Dinner and DH: AI and the Humanities
Graduate Workshop
Mary Ton, Digital Humanities Librarian
IGB-HRI DISTINGUISHED PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES
Jennifer Raff
Anthropology and Indigenous Studies, University of Kansas
30|
THINK AGAIN
Rebecca Walkowitz
Provost and Dean of the Faculty, and Claire Tow Professor of English Barnard College
“Knowing and Not Knowing Languages”
NOVEMBER
Supported by the Mellon Foundation. 18 | 26 |
Bonnie Mak (Information Sciences) and Allen Renear (Information Sciences), with David Sepkoski (History) responding
OCTOBER
GRADUATE STUDENT SOCIAL
Happy Hour Event for Graduate Students
Presented by the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology and cosponsored by HRI. Supported by the Olga G. Nalbandov Lecture Fund.
IGB-HRI DISTINGUISHED PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES
Adam Rutherford
Biology and Society, University College London
Presented by the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology and cosponsored by HRI. Supported by the Olga G. Nalbandov Lecture Fund.
7 |
INTERSEMINARS
Elena Guzman
African American and African Diaspora Studies, Anthropology, Indiana University Bloomington “From Reel to Ritual: Worldmaking through Cinéritual in African Diasporic film”
2025
JANUARY
BOOK DISCUSSION LUNCH
Unsettling: The El Paso Massacre, Resurgent White Nationalism, and the US-Mexico Border
Gilberto Rosas, Anthropology and Latina/Latino Studies
FEBRUARY
29| 12 |
THINK AGAIN
AI and the Human Condition: Thinking Beyond Accuracy
Iris Clever (History, University of Chicago) with Cris Hughes (Anthropology) responding
In collaboration with Professor Bonnie Mak and the iSchool.
19 |
THINK AGAIN
Dinner and DH: Planning Humanities Research Projects Graduate Workshop
Mary Ton, Digital Humanities Librarian
PUBLIC READING
Janice Harrington (English)
Readings from Yard Show: Black Life, Prairies, and Place Making In the Midwest, with musical accompaniment.
INSIDE SCOOP
Kalindi Vora
Ethnicity, Race, and Migration, and Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies, Yale University
THINK AGAIN
Kalindi Vora
Public Lecture sponsored by Daniel Shin (LAS ’91)
MARCH
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY
Presentations and Celebration
Cohosted by the Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program.
27 | 27 | 12 | 5 |
COMMUNITY SPEAKER SERIES
From Farm to Classroom: Community Wellness Collaboration
Panelists Tracy Barkley (Director, Sola Gratia Farm), Emily Stone (Director of Public Engagement, College of Education), and Bhakti Verma (PhD student, Curriculum & Instruction)
APRIL
INSIDE SCOOP
Ross Gay Award-winning poet and essayist
Cosponsored by Bruce D. Nesbitt African American Cultural Center.
26 | 16 | 16 | 8 |
PUBLIC READING
Ross Gay
Readings from his work.
MAY
PRIZES FOR RESEARCH
Ceremony and Reception
Please note that times and locations may be subject to change. For a full slate of HRI events and the most up-to-date information, visit go.illinois.edu/ HRICalendar. For additional humanities and arts events on the Urbana campus, visit the Campus Humanities Calendar under our website’s Events section.
Events and Deadlines, 2024–25
HRI Opening Reception
SEPTEMBER 18, 2024, 4:00 P.M.
We welcome you to attend an opening reception at Levis Faculty Center on the afternoon of September 18. Join us on the back patio to gather together in community as we enjoy refreshments and good company.
“Beneath
Our Feet: Grounded Space, Place, and Worldmaking”
INTERSEMINARS CULMINATING EVENT
September 27, 2024, 4:00 p.m. at Levis Faculty Center
September 28–29, 2024 at the Independent Media Center
Over the past eighteen months of working together, the second Interseminars cohort, “Improvise & Intervene,” came to a recurring theme: the land and how it connects us. In this culminating two-day event, we activate improvisation and intervention to explore multimodal connections to land. This event is a call to action, an invitation to understand how liberation and land share intimacies, and an opportunity to remember that our bodies are powerful, the land possesses profound knowledge, and freedom is a place. Improvisation and intervention are the prompts. The Independent Media Center (IMC) is the place. Feel, sit, and stand on it. It quakes and shakes beneath our feet. Join us!
HRI Application Deadlines 2024–25
AUGUST 16
NEH Summer Stipends
SEPTEMBER 15
Prindable Internship
SEPTEMBER 30
Humanities Gateway Internship
OCTOBER 11
Humanities in Action
OCTOBER 15
Supplemental Event Fund, Spring 2025 applications open
DECEMBER 6
Campus Fellowships
FEBRUARY 7
Summer Faculty Fellowships
FEBRUARY 28
HWW Summer Bridge Experience
MARCH 7
Prizes for Research
MARCH 28
Humanities Research Lab
MARCH 31
Odyssey Project Internship
APRIL 4
Research Clusters
APRIL 15
Supplemental Event Fund, Fall 2026 applications open
“AI and the Human Condition” Seminar Series
A SOCRATIC DIALOGUE
September 19, 2024
4:00 p.m.
Although much attention has been paid to identifying the deleterious effects of artificial intelligence, largely missing from ongoing debates is the kind of rich interpretation and analysis that is the hallmark of the humanities. Building upon their recent article, “What Is Information History?”, Bonnie Mak (Information Sciences) and Allen Renear (Information Sciences) introduce ways in which the humanities can engage in the critical examination of AI. Foregrounded will be historical and philosophical approaches to concepts that are key to our understanding of artificial intelligence. By situating AI as a site of humanistic inquiry, this seminar series highlights the unique contributions of the humanities to the study of AI and the human condition. Respondent: David Sepkoski, Thomas M. Siebel Chair in the History of Science.
THINKING BEYOND ACCURACY
February 12, 2025
4:00 p.m.
“Accuracy” is often associated with the number of correct predictions generated by a machine-learning model and can be taken as a metric of performance of an AI system. Although its usefulness as such a metric is debatable, the notion of accuracy itself still organizes much of the thinking about AI. In an analysis of FORDISC, a database of skull measurements used to identify human remains, Iris Clever demonstrates how a focus on accuracy might struggle to account for the entwined relationship between humanity, science, and technology. She argues that because the ideology of nineteenthcentury race sciences continues to configure the collection, organization, and reuse of data in FORDISC, improvements related to accuracy can be deeply misleading and further codify the global datafication of race in the sciences. How might a historical approach to “accuracy” enrich the ways that we understand one of the most fundamental concepts of statistical reckoning? This talk suggests how humanistic inquiry can help us think beyond accuracy. Iris Clever is a postdoctoral researcher at the Committee on Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science, University of Chicago. She has also been named an iSchool Research Fellow at the University of Illinois for 2024–26. Respondent: Cris Hughes, clinical associate professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
2024
HRI looks forward to continuing our partnership with PYGMALION as a sponsor in 2024. This annual cultural festival has transformed over the years, including not just musical acts but also authors, makers, comedians, podcasters, and more. Watch for updates to come, and in the meantime, mark your calendars for September 19–21 thisispygmalion.com
HRI Year in Review
The 2023–24 academic year may have been themeless, but it was nonetheless full of thought-provoking talks and opportunities to engage and learn from far-flung visitors and local experts alike. The new Community Speaker series launched with two events featuring guests from non-profit organizations that support essential public health and social services in Champaign-Urbana. Through this forum, panelists spoke candidly about the challenges and successes of their work.
Self-identified “Queer Black Troublemaker and Black Feminist Love Evangelist” Alexis Pauline Gumbs whisked us away in an interactive lecture looking at the connections between marine mammal adaptation and the legacies of the transatlantic trade for enslaved Africans.
Co-organized between HRI and History Professor Adrian Burgos Jr., March’s Sporting Publics Symposium brought together notable authors and historians whose work engages the intersection of sports, activism, race, and culture, including keynote speaker David Maraniss
At the close of the spring semester, celebrated Muscogee (Creek) writer and three-time U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo returned to campus for a two-day residency. She participated in a CultureTalk conversation with Jenny L. Davis (American Indian Studies and Anthropology, member of Chickasaw Nation) and an Inside Scoop lunch with students, and captivated a packed hall with readings from her prodigious body of work.
1. Brenda Farnell (Anthropology Department Head), Antony Augoustakis (Associate Dean for Humanities and Interdisciplinary Programs, LAS), and HRI Director Antoinette Burton at the HRI Opening Reception 2–3. Erik McDuffie (African American Studies and History) and Natalie Lira (Latina/Latino Studies) presented to honors students at Illinois Street Residence Halls 4–5. Community Speaker Series presenters: Mel Grantham, Teddie Hill, moderator Michelle Awad, and Janice Walker; Claudia Lennhoff and VC Wanda E. Ward 6. Panelists at Rendered Obsolete book discussion: Ryan Griffis (Art and Design), moderator Gillen D. Wood (English, Geology), Jamie L. Jones (English), Deena Rymhs (American Indian Studies), and Rebecca Oh (English) 7–8. Alexis Pauline Gumbs speaking and signing books 9. Interseminars fellows at social hour 10. International Women’s Day speakers 11–12. Sporting Publics Symposium: keynote speaker David Maraniss; presenters, respondents, and organizers: David Maraniss, Daniel Nasset, Antoinette Burton, Louis Moore, Theresa Runstedtler, Augustus Wood, Adrian Burgos Jr., Daniel Gilbert, Shakeia Taylor, and Frank Guridy 13. “Sights and Sounds of Black Britain” speakers Caroline Bressey (Geography, University College London), Kennetta Hammond Perry (Black Studies, Northwestern University), and Rochelle Sennet (Music and Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, College of Fine and Applied Arts), with Antoinette Burton
14–15. Joy Harjo: Public reading at Alice Campbell Alumni Center; in the CultureTalk conversation with Jenny L. Davis (American Indian Studies and Anthropology; member of the Chickasaw Nation) 16–17. Prize Ceremony and Year-End Reception: Gordon Hutner (English) and Melanie Loots (recently retired Senior Executive Associate Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation); Faculty prize winner Bobby J. Smith, II (African American Studies), second from right, with Candice Jenkins (Head of African American Studies, English), Alexia Williams (Religion), Antoinette Burton, and Merle Bowen (African American Studies)
Interseminars Events
Imagining Otherwise: Speculation in the Americas Culminating Symposium
The inaugural Interseminars cohort, “Imagining Otherwise: Speculation in the Americas,” held a culminating symposium in September 2023. Featuring a slate of performances, research talks, and public installations from nine members of the graduate student cohort, this symposium also welcomed guest keynote speakers Carolyn Fornoff (Latin American Studies, Cornell University) and Natalie Loveless (History of Art, Design, and Visual Culture, University of Alberta). Chicago-based dancer Zachary Nicol and cohort member Adanya Gilmore (Dance) also performed at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. At the end of the two-day extravaganza, the Interseminars conveners and cohort members launched a book—named after the project title—which represented eighteen months of research insights, works-in-progress, and interdisciplinary introspection.
Read more at go.illinois.edu/IS1BOOK
1. Guest performer Zachary Nicol 2. Student dancers Jaden Monroe and Jaymes Crowder-Acres performing a piece created by Adanya Gilmore 3–5. Installations by fellows Kofi Bazzell-Smith, María Serrano-Abreu, and Daniela Morales Fredes 6. Ramón E. Martínez (Ray) performing 7. María Serrano-Abreu presenting research 8. Toyosi Tejumade-Morgan stage reading with Sam Smith (KCPA) 9–10. Interseminars faculty and fellows panel 11. Inaugural Interseminars cohort
In Retrospect: Programs & Initiatives
The Odyssey Project
The 2023–2024 academic year was full of new experiences for everyone involved. During the fall semester, students attended Deke Weaver’s performance art piece titled CETACEAN (The Whale), which is the sixth performance from The Unreliable Bestiary. Students had the opportunity to witness their own professor, Jorge Lucero, star in the show. It was an incredible and moving experience, where the class came together to see so many of the questions discussed in class—such as the role of performance art in the context of this planet’s most pressing issues—play out on stage.
Students welcomed multimedia artists Stacey “BLACKSTAR” Robinson and psychologist Kamau “DJ Kamaumau” Grantham, together the collective BlackMau. The group completed individual collages reflecting their dreams and values and learned the basics of DJ mixing. The week was spent in color, music, and conversations around sustaining creativity and seeing oneself as an artist.
The Odyssey Project published its second collection of poetry during spring semester with the help of undergraduate intern, Jonathan Zhang. The chapbook
includes poems full of insight and reflection. Many poems emerged from students’ week spent with Urbana Poet Laureate Ja Nelle Davenport-Pleasure, who brought her contagious love of the spoken word to class. DavenportPleasure’s residency included a lot of time spent with mirrors, as a creative exercise in writing “self-poetry,” as well as a collectively composed piece that has been placed as the first poem in the chapbook.
Poetry took center stage again when former US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo visited HRI in April. Students read her book titled A Map to the Next World in their literature section with Dr. Valerie O’Brien and were delighted to hear Harjo herself read poems from that collection during her public reading. When an audience member asked Harjo what Audre Lorde might have meant when she claimed that “Poetry is not a luxury,” Harjo answered “The Odyssey Project,” in recognition of the immense obstacles many Odyssey students face and persevere through while taking classes.
Odyssey Project Associate Director Michelle Awad delivered the commencement speech at graduation this year, reflecting on her journey with
the program that has spanned five years and four different roles, beginning as undergraduate intern in 2017. At graduation, HRI Director Antoinette Burton remarked, “Michelle has been and done so much for Odyssey and Odyssey students, it’s hard to summarize. Intern, teacher, advisor, mentor, liaison, researcher, community networker, advocate, champion, and visionary. Michelle lives and breathes the values that Odyssey embodies.” We wish Michelle all the best as she moves on to new opportunities this summer!
This coming year Odyssey is happy to welcome back Dr. Jorge Lucero, Dr. Jon Hale, Dr. Valerie O’Brien, and Dr. Augustus Wood. We are excited to welcome Calandra Warren, who will be teaching the Critical Thinking and Writing section of the course, and Kate Ross, who joins as Visiting Odyssey Project Academic Advisor and Student Support Coordinator. As always, we are grateful to Odyssey students who have trusted us with their precious time and embraced the posture of lifelong student.
Education Justice Project
Celebrating 15 Years of College in Prison Program
Education Justice Project (EJP) was honored to be invited by Timothy Killeen, president of the University of Illinois, for a reception celebrating our 15-year anniversary at the President’s House on April 15, 2024. University leaders, EJP alumni, EJP members, elected officials, and others joined us to commemorate this special event. Johnny Page, EJP alumnus who now works on violence prevention in Chicago, said in a speech, “When we talk about the efficacy of a program, we start looking at metrics, and how we measure something, we look at the impact that it’s had on the community. When we’re talking about families, neighborhoods, and society as a whole, from my perspective, EJP has knocked it out of the park, and continues to do so.”
We kicked off celebrations earlier this year with our first ever Homecoming on August 26, 2023 at the University YMCA. It was attended by approximately 200 people, with many EJP alumni travelling long distances to participate. The Homecoming was organized as a day-long conference, with a plenary session sharing our experiences, break-
out sessions about our existing and new initiatives, and a separate room for letter writing to people in prison with our community-based effort Ripple Effect.
We spent additional time this year reflecting on the 15 years since we first started teaching University of Illinois courses at Danville Correctional Center, a prison located about 35 miles east of the Urbana-Champaign campus. Since we began, nearly 400 men have enrolled in the variety of classes we offer. In the last year, we distributed a record number of record number of 20,000 reentry guides. We produce the only national reentry guide. We also have a reentry guide for those facing deportation.
Several new projects include a high school program at the Danville prison we piloted in contract with Chicago Public Schools and the Illinois Department of Corrections. We are excited to be close to finalizing an agreement to expand our courses at Menard Correctional Center in southern Illinois. We also continue to move forward on becoming an official unit of the University of Illinois.
This year we hosted several engaging author talks, including one by Arthur Longworth, author of Zek: An American Prison Story, an annual lecture cosponsored by HRI and EJP. There were also talks by Ben Austen, who recently released a book about the elimination of parole in Illinois, Chaz Rumpf, who wrote a book about issues of incarceration for women, and Raylan Gilford, EJP alumnus who just published his third book about the trauma experienced during a period of incarceration.
Arthur Longworth, flanked by Antoinette Burton and EJP Director Rebecca Ginsburg
Interseminars Initiative 2023–24
The second Interseminars cohort, “Improvise and Intervene,” is nearing completion of its 18-month interdisciplinary project. Faculty conveners Maryam Kashani (Gender and Women’s Studies and Asian American Studies), Junaid Rana (Asian American Studies), and R. Elizabeth Velásquez Estrada (Latina/Latino Studies) and nine graduate fellows spent 2023–24 studying together, hosting visiting artists and speakers, and pursuing collaborative research with support from the initiative’s Mellon grant.
Silvia Federici (activist, teacher, and writer).
Guest speakers included Damon Locks (artist, educator, musician) and Tara Aisha Willis (curator in performance & public practice, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago), Courtney Morris (Gender and Women’s Studies, University of California Berkeley), Dylan Rodríguez (Black Study and Media and Cultural Studies, University of California, Riverside), Kameelah Janan Rasheed (artist, education, and writer, Cooper Union), and
Bringing together their expertise in a range of areas—including choreography, gaming, geography, social work, studio art, and community organizing—the fellows have been sharing their Interseminars research and experiences throughout the year. Read their reflections at go.illinois.edu/HRI-Inquiry
After holding their second intensive seminar in May, the group is preparing for their culminating, community-oriented event, to be held September 27–29 (see p. 14).
Humanities in Action Fall 2023
The Humanities in Action program completed its second year with five students from across the university. The HIA scholars were matched—by the Community Learning Lab in the School of Social Work—with a community partner to address a vital area of need in the local community. The partners included the Helping Our Youth Change Everyday (HOYCE) Center, Immigrant Services of ChampaignUrbana, the Education Justice Project, Mahomet Area Youth Club, and Strides Shelter. Read more at go.illinois.edu/HIA23
Humanities Research Lab 2024
Humanities Research Lab courses are existing humanities courses refashioned to incorporate a significant communitybased research component, with support from HRI and the Office of Undergraduate Research. Spring 2024 saw the return of SPAN 232: Spanish in the Community, taught by Ann Abbott, and the addition of HIST 202: American Environmental History, taught by Robert Morrissey
Students from both courses presented their research at the Humanities Research Lab Showcase, which was part of the university’s Undergraduate Research Week. Students from HIST 202 completed field work at Allerton Park and researched in the University Archives. Their digital exhibition is available at oakleydamhistory. web.illinois.edu. SPAN 232 students presented their research on unaccompanied minors. Read about the showcase event at go.illinois.edu/ HRL24
With thanks to donor Elizabeth Nolan (LAS ’81), whose generous support has helped to make the HRL program a success.
Courtney Morris
Dylan Rodriguez
Damon Locks and Tara Aisha Willis
Silvia Federici
Mellon Pre-Doctoral Public Humanities Fellowship
2023–24
As part of her Mellon Predoctoral Fellowship, Philosophy PhD candidate Ashli Anda spent last academic year volunteering in the Champaign County Juvenile Detention Center, where she organized a series of sessions focused on ethical decision-making. A specialist in the theories of 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant, Anda came to this work through a commitment to reconciling Kant’s focus on punishment and the law with the lived reality of human experience in the context of imprisonment and mass incarceration.
There might seem to be chasm between the European philosophical tradition and the kind of public humanities Ashli sought to practice. Her goal was always modest: to get the students talking about their decision-making processes and to consider what motivates them to choose the paths they do. Due in part to her previous experience in prison settings, she anticipated that she would be pivoting according to what the students wanted. Her frameworks remained philosophy-based, but she strove to meet them where they were in terms of their concerns and interests and radically revised her pedagogical approaches in response to what they were telling and showing her.
Ashli defended her PhD and is headed to a job at California Lutheran University, where she hopes to be able to continue to do work similar to what she did at the JDC. Before she left, she trained a fellow philosophy student, Katha Patel, on site in the facility, so the conversations will continue at the JDC. Read more about Ashli’s fellowship experience at go.illinois.edu/anda.
Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Humanities as Social Practice 2023–24
Divya Nair, a PhD in English from the University of Pennsylvania, specializes in race, empire, and classical reception in English literature between 1500 and 1800 within a global historiographic framework. She is now working on a monograph, “Classical Reception and the Problem of the Color Line in Early Modern English Literature.”
Divya joined this year’s Campus Fellows seminar, a bi-weekly interdisciplinary venue where faculty and students meet to share work in progress. Divya herself presented a portion of her research to the group.
Beyond the seminar, Divya organized two public, community-engaged experiences that grew out of her work on the color line. The first, which took place at the Douglass Branch of the Champaign Public Library (as well as online), was a reading group focused on W.E.B Dubois’ 1928 novel, Dark Princess Divya’s second project also involved a community-based public reading project. In spring 2024 she led a discussion of the classic Hindu text, the Rāmāyana, at the Spurlock Museum of World Cultures on campus. These Saturday morning sessions, which took the form of a katha, or storytelling circle, were open to all members of the community, and featured some of the Rāmāyana-related material objects held in the Spurlock. Divya arranged for the katha experience to culminate in a public lecture by Swami Tyagananda, Hindu Chaplin at Harvard University, who spoke on “Learning from Rāmāyana.” Read more about Divya’s fellowship experience at go.illinois.edu/nair
National Humanities Advocacy Day 2024
HRI was proud to send representatives from the University of Illinois UrbanaChampaign to the 2024 National Humanities Alliance (NHA) Annual Meeting and Advocacy Day in Washington, D.C., held March 10–12. Pictured here are undergraduate student Jessica Vargas, graduate student Priyanka Zylstra, and faculty member Jon Hale (Education Policy, Organization and Leadership/ Curriculum & Instruction).
Graduate Student Open House and Resource Fair
In February, HRI held its first Graduate Student Open House and Resource Fair, featuring resource tables, a series of panels, an opportunity to meet with Writers Workshop staff, and a lightning round of graduate research presentations—all geared toward the needs and interests of Illinois grad students in the arts and humanities. In the coming year, the Graduate Advisory Councill will continue to meet with HRI leadership to collaborate on future opportunities, such as the new “Dinner and DH” series.
Experiential Learning at HRI
David F. Prindable Intern
Hafsa Faruqi, a rising senior doublemajoring in Clinical/Community Psychology and Spanish, served as HRI’s David F. Prindable Communications and Outreach intern. Her favorite part of this role was creating graphics and posts for HRI social media campaigns. She also conducted interviews with HRI-affiliated student workers and wrote a blog series called “Intern Insights” about her experiences in the humanities community at Illinois.
Humanities Research Lab
HISTORY
202: American Environmental History
Teaching Assistants
Devin Manley graduated in spring 2024 with a major in History and a minor in Anthropology. Manley will be attending graduate school at the University of Chicago in fall 2024 to start his master’s degree in History.
SPANISH 232: Spanish in the Community
Teaching Assistant
Monserrat Gonzalez-Gutierrez graduated in spring 2024 with majors in Mathematics and Spanish. She plans to continue her education in the MA/PhD program in Hispanic Literatures and Cultures at the U. of I.
Humanities Gateway Intern
James Perkovich, a rising senior majoring in History, returned for an additional year with the Humanities Gateway Internship in Public Media and Civic Engagement. This experience is offered by HRI in partnership with Illinois Public Media.
Odyssey Project Intern
Julie Matuszewski also graduated in spring 2024, with majors in History and Psychology and a minor in Legal Studies. Julie will be attending law school at the U. of I. in fall 2024.
Research Assistant
Chloe Parrella is a PhD candidate in the History department. She worked with Professor Morrissey to support students interested in the local environmental history of Allerton Park as a research assistant for HIST 202.
Jonathan Zhang, a rising senior majoring in Computer Science and Anthropology, served as an intern with the Odyssey Project. In this role he supported adult learners in the program and also managed the production of Odyssey’s 2024 poetry chapbook.
HRI Staff & Advisory Committees
Welcome to HRI
We are excited to welcome Kate Ross, who joins us as visiting Odyssey Project academic advisor and student support coordinator. Kate is a social worker and adult education professional who most recently worked as an adult education advisor at Parkland College. A University of Illinois alum, she holds a BA in English and a Master’s of Social Work. Kate worked in the Champaign-Urbana nonprofit world for ten years, including time with Perinatal Connect Women’s Mental Health Coalition, YWCA, Carle’s Healthy Beginnings home visiting program, Sistering CU, and The GOALS Project. She enjoys helping people connect with themselves and each other.
STAFF
ADMINISTRATION
Antoinette Burton, Director aburton@illinois.edu 217-244-3344
Nancy Castro, Deputy Director ncastro@illinois.edu 217-244-7913
Stephanie Uebelhoer, Office Support Specialist suebelho@illinois.edu 217-244-3344
BUSINESS OFFICE
Jenna Zieman, Budget and Finance Manager zieman@illinois.edu 217-244-5013
COMMUNICATIONS
Erin Ciciora, Assistant Director for Communications elukehar@illinois.edu 217-265-7580
ODYSSEY PROJECT
Kate Ross, Visiting Odyssey Project Academic Advisor and Student Support Coordinator odysseyproject@illinois.edu 217-300-3888
EVENTS AND SPACE USAGE
Lydia Allen, Events and Client Relations Coordinator allen7@illinois.edu 217-265-6218
HUMANITIES WITHOUT WALLS CONSORTIUM
Peggy Brennan, Associate Director of Humanities Without Walls mlbrenn2@illinois.edu 217-265-5657
COMMITTEES
HRI Advisory Committee
Teresa Barnes, Gender and Women’s Studies/History
Deena Rymhs, American Indian Studies
Irvin Hunt, African American Studies/ English
Soo Ah Kwon, Asian American Studies
John M. Murphy, Communication
Carl H. Niekerk, Germanic Languages and Literatures
Sara L. Schwebel, Information Sciences
Oscar Vázquez, Art History, Art and Design
HRI Graduate Student Advisory Committee
Jude Mensah, French and Italian
Chloe Parrella, History
Azlan Smith, English (Writing Studies)
From the Fellows
Throughout the year, Campus Fellows contribute to HRI’s research blog Inquiry. Here’s a roundup of their reflections on the Fellows Seminar, a cornerstone of the fellowship program.
“The fellowship seminar allowed me to see different ways of framing my dissertation’s analyses, revealing new connections that strengthen my arguments. The fellows’ provocative questions and insightful comments about one of my dissertation chapters have implications for the chapter’s discussion and my dissertation. It has been an encouraging and motivating experience, one I will cherish and look back on as a pivotal experience in my graduate studies at Illinois.”
Miguel A. Avalos (Sociology), 2023–24 graduate fellow
“The fellowship seminar has really helped me cement my commitment to writing in experimental and interdisciplinary ways. I’ve been encouraged and challenged to hone and justify my use of personal narrative in my academic writing, and to communicate the urgency of these histories to people who not only work on other things, but who might not initially see a connection between their work and mine. I think both things have made me a little sharper as a scholar and more compassionate as a reader and writer.”
Alexandra Sundarsingh (History), 2023–24 graduate fellow
“Sharing my work with thoughtful, rigorous, and talented scholars through the seminar has been intimidating at times, but it has opened me up to fair critique that has pushed my analysis forward in productive ways. It has also been instrumental in learning from and with scholars outside of my academic discipline who share a profound respect for the humanities.”
Jon Hale (Education Policy, Organization and Leadership/Curriculum & Instruction), 2023–24 faculty fellow
“In light of my book’s interdisciplinarity, I greatly benefited from the infrastructure and guidance provided by HRI’s collaborative working group. I composed my first book chapter for the fellowship, and the input from our community of dialogue has been rewarding in guiding me with preparing this chapter for both specialists and broader audiences. My consideration of the ways in which literature (broadly conceived) can richly engage with other disciplines within the humanities and arts continues to grow thanks to this fellowship!”
Anna Torres-Cacoullos (Spanish and Portuguese), 2023–24 faculty fellow
2023-24 HRI Graduate Fellows Alexandra Sundarsingh, Adam LoBue, and Soumya Dasgupta at prizes ceremony and closing reception.
Giving to HRI
We are grateful for the many ways our donors and friends have shaped and supported a vibrant humanities research community on the University of Illinois campus.
Dr. Dan Shin (LAS ’91) and his wife, Alys, are key supporters of the interdisciplinary, community-engaged work of the Humanities Research Institute. Thanks to their most recent gift, HRI will be hosting events with researcher Kalindi Vora, whose work at the intersection of feminist studies, science and technology studies, disability studies and medicine speaks to urgent questions of the moment. Last year’s Medical Humanities residency with Dr. Kirsten Ostherr was also made possible by the Shins’ support. Whether purchasing books for Odyssey Project students or initiating funding to launch the Humanities in Action community engagement program, the Shins’ stalwart support is a shining example of the power of giving to make a tangible impact on our students, programs, and community.
Additionally, these initiatives and more have been strengthened through donor generosity:
• courses and service opportunities connecting students with meaningful community engagement, such as the Humanities Research Lab
• unique internship experiences, such as the David F. Prindable Communications and Outreach Internship and Humanities Gateway Internship with partner Illinois Public Media
• supporting better access to the humanities—and renewed sense of hope and joy in learning—for low-income, nontraditional students in the East Central Illinois community through the Odyssey Project
Foundational HRI programs, such as the Campus Fellowship program and Research Clusters, could also benefit in innumerable ways from private support— helping to sustain and expand the work of researchers who play a key role in imagining just, productive, and innovative futures for all.
You can make a difference today by visiting hri.illinois.edu/giving or contacting Senior Director of Development Erin Kirby at ekirby2@illinois.edu.
A Connected Community
We invite you to join the email list for Amplify, which shares stories of the rippling impact of the humanities at Illinois and beyond. And sign up for our E-News to learn about HRI’s speakers, programs, and opportunities offered throughout the academic year. Visit go.illinois.edu/ EmailList
Humanities Research Institute
The Humanities Research Institute (HRI) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign fosters interdisciplinary study in the humanities, arts, and social sciences. Established in 1997 as the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, HRI is a vibrant hub for humanities activity on campus. We coordinate and host lectures, symposia, and panel discussions on a wide variety of topics, and we award prizes recognizing excellence in faculty and student humanities research. We convene distinguished scholars from around the world, and we support Illinois faculty and graduate student research through fellowships and a bimonthly seminar. HRI cultivates collaborative faculty-driven initiatives through its Research Clusters; hosts multi-million-dollar external foundation grants; and supports faculty and graduate student reading groups.
