RESEARCH, SCHOLARSHIP & CREATIVITY

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS

ARHU faculty maintain close relationships and hold leadership positions with:

American Comparative Literature Association: Sangeeta Ray, president

College Band Directors National Association: Michael Votta, vice president

Society for Music Theory: Gretchen Horlacher, vice president

Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication: Linda Aldoory, vice president (president-elect)

STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS

In partnership with UMD’s Center for Global Migration Studies and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, the “Making African America” symposium brought together scholars, journalists, activists, curators, filmmakers and writers to discuss how immigration has shaped and is continuing to reshape what it means to be Black in the United States.

Faculty from the Maryland Language Science Center and the Department of English helped shape Planet Word, a new museum in Washington, D.C., that seeks to inspire and renew a love of words, language and reading in people of all ages. Faculty continue to collaborate with the museum on research and other initiatives.

Associate Professor Anita Atwell Seate, Professor Brooke Fisher Liu and Assistant Professor Jiyoun Kim from the Department of Communication are working with the National Weather Service to improve how forecasters communicate severe weather threats across the nation. The project is funded by a $368,675 grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency.

The Department of Philosophy established an arrangement with the University of Maryland Medical System to have philosophy graduate students and recent Ph.D. graduates serve on a hospital ethics committee. Two students, along with Department of Philosophy Professor and Chair Samuel Kerstein, provide consultations on issues including withdrawal of life-sustaining treatments, do-not-resuscitate orders and medical futility.

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SCHOLARSHIP

1. | During the flare-up of IsraeliPalestinian violence this past spring, Visiting Professor of Israel Studies and Jewish Studies Scott Lasensky spoke on a panel organized by HBO and the Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies at UMD about past American attempts to resolve the conflict, why they failed and steps the Biden administration could take going forward. The event was part of a screening and discussion of the HBO film “Oslo,” a diplomatic thriller about the 1993 Oslo Accord, and drew a global audience of scholars and academics.

2. | Philip Resnik, professor of linguistics, is applying machine learning techniques to social media data in an attempt to make predictions about important aspects of mental health, including the risk of suicide. 3. | Associate Professor of American Studies La Marr Jurelle Bruce’s book, “How to Go Mad Without Losing Your Mind” explored the Black radical creativity of artists like Nina Simone, Richard Pryor, Lauryn Hill and Kendrick Lamar to shed light on various manifestations of madness in the face of antiBlackness. Bruce’s research is situated in the emerging, interdisciplinary field of mad studies, which interrogates the social construction of psychiatry and mental illness—and illuminates lived experiences of “madness.”

4. | Jordana Moore Saggese, associate professor and associate chair in the Department of Art History and Archaeology and current editor-in-chief for the College Art Association’s Art Journal, oversaw the first issue in the journal’s 80-year history to focus explicitly and exclusively on “Blackness.”

TEACHING

New School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies’ faculty members Sam Crawford, a sound and media technologies specialist, and Marielis Garcia, dance artist-in-residence, taught “Exploring and Creating Virtual Performance,” which guided students through an exploration of virtual performance, including video game design, short comedies, stop motion animation, dance for the camera and video essays.

In “Feminist Reconceptualizations of Knowledge,” Assistant Research Professor in the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Jessica Lee Mathiason partnered with Wikipedia Education to design modules to teach students how to write, format and publish their own Wikipedia articles to address gaps in feminist, LGBTQ+ and POC history by restoring the legacies of historical figures, groups and/or events.

In “Ancient Slavery and Its American Impacts,” Assistant Professor of Classics Katherine Wasdin used texts, artworks, archaeological material and comparative evidence to lead students in an interrogation of how slavery permeated the ancient Mediterranean societies of Greece and Rome. Students then spent time reading about how both abolitionists and advocates for slavery in the United States used ancient societies to bolster their cases.

VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS

A new mural in Cole Field House, home to the David C. Driskell Center, honors the life of the late David C. Driskell, renowned artist and scholar of Black American art and Distinguished University Professor of Art. Designed by Assistant Professor of Art Brandon Donahue, who was formerly the Driskell Center artist-in-residence, the 9-foot-tall, 35-footwide mural honors Driskell’s own background and bold, colorful art. Three undergraduate art students helped Donahue paint the mural over the course of several months.

Renowned conductor Marin Alsop was appointed the firstever music director of the National Orchestral Institute + Festival, a program of The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. Alsop will innovate programming, conduct multiple concerts and mentor emerging musicians. The University of Maryland Art Gallery’s online photo show “The Skinwalker Ranch Portfolio,” featured 80 images from photographer Christopher Bartel that documented the eastern Utah ranch, long associated with UFOs and other paranormal activity. Bartel donated more than 1,500 images to the gallery.