Interseminars Graduate Fellows Announced | HRI - Humanities Research Institute

Inaugural Mellon Interseminars Graduate Fellows Named

Fellows to collaborate with faculty in course development, research

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - February 3, 2022

The Humanities Research Institute (HRI) has announced the first cohort of Interseminars graduate fellows: nine students from a range of disciplines and home colleges, including Education, Fine and Applied Arts, and Liberal Arts and Sciences.

The fellows will collaborate with faculty conveners in the design of cross-departmental and cross-college courses, participating in the project’s two summer intensives, an interdisciplinary methods seminar and themed seminar course, and engaging in collaborative research. The project spans an 18-month period, culminating in a community event.

Supported by a $2,000,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation, the Interseminars Initiative funds three such projects over three successive years, each selected through a competitive application process. This initiative represents the latest thinking on how best to practice a genuinely collaborative and equitable commitment to graduate training in the public research university of the 21st century, particularly for students historically underrepresented in American higher education.

In addition to funding from Mellon, these fellowships were made possible by the generosity of the Graduate College at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

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2022–23 Interseminars Graduate Fellows

Kofi Bazzell-Smith

Degree program: MFA in School of Art and Design (FAA); affiliation with East Asian Languages and Cultures
Areas of study: New Media, Manga, Comics, Film, Japanese Language

D. Nicole Campbell

Degree program: PhD in Communication (LAS)
Areas of study: Rhetoric and public discourse, specifically rhetoric of prisons and prison abolition

Daniela Morales Fredes

Degree program: PhD in Urban and Regional Planning
Areas of study: Environmental and historic preservation and cultural heritage as a resource for community development

Adanya Gilmore

Degree program: MFA in Dance
Areas of study: Politics of gender and Black women, their relationships with each other, the body, the world/other people

Beatriz Jiménez

Degree program: PhD in Spanish and Portuguese
Areas of study: Spanish literature and culture

Ray Martinez

Degree program: PhD in Spanish and Portuguese
Areas of study: Hispanic literature and culture

Emerson Parker Pehl

Degree program: PhD in English; affiliation with Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory
Areas of study: Queer Indigenous theory, settler colonialism studies, and decoloniality

María B. Serrano-Abreu

Degree program: PhD in Educational Psychology
Areas of study: Antiracist and afro-centered education; Headwraps, racial identity, and beauty standards; Culturally responsive pedagogy; Qualitative and Decolonial methodologies

Toyosi Tejumade-Morgan

Degree program: PhD in Theatre
Areas of study: Performance Activism, Production Dramaturgy, Traditional and Contemporary African Drama, theatre history and criticism

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More about the First Interseminars Project

The first Interseminars project, led by faculty members Josue David Cisneros (Communication), Patrick Earl Hammie (Art and Design), and Jorge Lucero (Art and Design) is themed “Imagining Otherwise: Speculation in the Americas.” Referencing examples from TV’s “Lovecraft Country” to recent anti-racist activist efforts, the theme centers speculation as a method for looking differently at the world—both to critically assess its status quo and to reimagine how it could be different. Studying speculative forms in art and activism, they propose, can help guide scholarly and creative inquiry about crises ranging from climate change to systemic violence and immigration policy. The project’s work will be foregrounded in the knowledge and experiences of historically marginalized communities throughout the Americas, exploring how speculation has been and can be used to reframe the past, present and future. Read more

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