Fellowship Reflections Gavin Shatkin and Alanna Prince

GAVIN SHATKIN

As a Humanities Center Fellow this past year, I experienced a series of ‘aha’ moments the likes of which I have rarely had in my career as an academic.

It was apparent from the start that the Fellowship theme of “Reckonings,” with its connotations of historical wrongs, entrenched injustice, and the imperative of restorative action, opened important new ways of thinking about scholarship in my field of urban planning. The opportunity to engage the work of a diverse and brilliant group of scholars thinking from different disciplines, and working on varied social issues and historical periods, led to myriad insights into common themes in the reckoning of injustice around questions of race and racialization, gender, sexual orientation, class, and other forms of difference. We engaged in rich discussions on questions of representation and positionality, of the methodological challenges of dealing with silences in the archive, of the continuing struggle for academic freedom, and of the reluctance of our disciplines and associated professional fields to fully confront their own complicity in historical and contemporary injustice. These discussions were all the richer because of our interdisciplinarity, which allowed us to transcend the narrowness of disciplinary debates and approach each other’s ideas with curiosity and a sense of wonder.

In all, the Fellowship year was both humbling and inspiring. It transformed how I think about the social impact of my work, and about how my scholarship connects to other disciplines. My own project on Urbanization in Southeast Asia would never have progressed as far as it has without the rich conversations and invaluable input of my fellow Fellows. I am so grateful to them, and to the Humanities Center, for this career-altering experience.

ALANNA PRINCE

When I first applied to be a Humanities Center Fellow, I was thinking it would afford me the time

to dive deep into my project. The full year to focus solely on my dissertation would be a real privilege — something not many others receive, and I was excited at the possibilities of what my project could become. When I was awarded the fellowship I was overjoyed — after a long period of tough news during the still ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it got me excited about my scholarship all over again. I spent the summer ahead of the Humanities Center collecting material to focus on, contacting my subjects for interviews, and getting ready to put together a strong dissertation. The project, “Luminous Black: On Making Time, the World, and the Self in Black Women’s Poetry” focuses on contemporary Black women’s poetry, and how these poets use their art to tell stories about history, from a feminist and decolonized perspective. This includes doing archival research, but also leaning into the spectral, the intuitive, and the unknowable. I argue that this work is not just accurate, but that it tells a truth that is lacking from common history books. This fellowship provided me with the privilege and luxury of being able to take my work to a new level.

But it is not just my work that was enhanced by this fellowship. I was also lucky to join an active community of scholars once again. Even prior to our first meeting I was thoroughly impressed by my co-fellows. I was thankful that they treated me as a colleague and intellectual. Throughout our meetings, I watched as they offered one another feedback, sometimes with passion and fervor, other times with grace and compliments, but always with compassion and respect. It was what turned out to be one of my greatest lessons of the experience — how to give direct and thoughtful feedback, feedback that is effective and not just a perfunctory gesture of “here are my thoughts.” That was an invaluable skill to learn.

Effective feedback from the fellows is in part what made my own project so much stronger. Having spent a lot of time away from my scholarly community during the lockdowns kept me mostly in my head — previously I had been spending my days in Holmes Hall, bouncing ideas off of my cohort mates and peers in the department. But without that camaraderie, I had been blind to the shortcomings and good qualities of my own work. Hearing from historians, lawyers, anthropologists, and rhetoricians, among others — all with their own brilliant perspectives and knowledge bases — brought my work to a new level. Not only did it make it more legible to those outside of my own field, it actually allowed me to call more scholars into the conversations that I wanted to have about the subjects of my work.

I am forever grateful for my time at the Humanities Center and what it gave me, and I am excited for all of the new cohorts of scholars who will embark on this opportunity next!

2021-2022 FELLOWS

Allison Chapin PhD Candidate, Department of History

College of Social Sciences and Humanities Materializing Humanity: Colonial Violence and Imperial Humanitarianism on Display in Britain, 1880-1925

K.J. Rawson Associate Professor of English & Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Coordinator of Digital Integration Teaching Initiative

College of Social Sciences and Humanities

Inequitable Representations in the Digital Transgender Archive

Libby Adler Professor of Law & Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

School of Law College of Social Sciences and Humanities Governing the Terrain Called Beauty

Jessica Linker Assistant Professor of History

College of Social Sciences and Humanities The Fruits of Their Labor: The Work of Early American Scientific Women, 1750-1860

Jordon Bosse Assistant Professor, School of Nursing

Bouvé College of Health Science Moral Reckoning with Nurses’ Actions, Inactions, and Silence that May Perpetuate Health Inequity Among Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer People

Christopher Parsons Associate Professor of History

College of Social Sciences and Humanities Of Race and Roses

Gavin Shatkin Professor of Public Policy & Architecture; Director, MS in Urban Planning and Policy & MA, International Affairs

College of Arts, Media, and Design College of Social Sciences and Humanities Reckoning the Urban: The Urbanization of the State and the Politics of Claims-making in Southeast Asia

Kara Swanson Associate Professor of Law; Affiliate Faculty in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies & History

School of Law College of Social Sciences and Humanities Inventing Citizens: Race, Gender, and Patents

N. Fadeke Castor Assistant Professor of Religion and Africana Studies

College of Social Sciences and Humanities When Black Spirits Matter: A Reckoning

Alanna Prince PhD Candidate, Department of English

College of Social Sciences and Humanities Luminous Black: On Making Time, the World, and the Self in Black Women’s Poetry

Suzanna Danuta Walters Professor of Sociology; Professor and Director of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

College of Social Sciences and Humanities Communist, Feminist, Therapist: a Memoir of My Mother