Skip to main content

Search

SHILPA DAHAKE, "Riverscape As Spatiotemporal Subjects: Narratives Of Wetness, Dryness, And Socio-Cultural Interactions Along Godavari River, Nashik"

Rivers and cities together produce a complex spaces or ‘-scapes’ which are deeply intertwined and entangled. Even then, the multiplicities of this engagement do not sufficiently reflect in the urban governance and politics. In order to, conceptualize the river-city relationship, I build upon the anthropological scholarship on land-water nexus and extend it with an ethnographic case of Godavari River meandering through Nashik city, located in the western Indian state of Maharashtra.

MARIANA JUNQUEIRA, "Homemaking In Transition: The Role Of Temporary Housing In The Lives Of The Woolsey Fire Survivors"

“I can't live in limbo for two years. Because that's what we are. We are living in limbo here.” This is how Patricia, a Southern California resident who lost her house in the Woolsey Fire, described how she felt about her living arrangement eight months later, in July of 2019. The Woolsey Fire ignited on November 8, 2018, in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, California. Among the unprecedented destruction, at least 400 homes burned down. Patricia, her family, and many neighbors are still experiencing displacement, living in temporary housing.

LUCY GILL, "Frictions In Transit: Tracing Watery Historical Ecologies"

Nexuses of interchange are often loci for awkward articulations involving both humans and nonhumans, creating frictions that manifest materially. How can centering these sites with deep histories of amplified frictions help us rethink the possible dynamics of encounter in order to chart more sustainable futures for ourselves and our more-than-human kin? This project investigates human-environment interconnectivities in the socially complex, ecologically variable landscape of Lower Central America through an exploration of one aquatic ecosystem: the Gulf of San Miguel watershed in Panama.

LARYSSA SHIPLEY, "A Phenomenological Approach To The Kom el-Shuqafa Catacombs"

The Catacombs of Kom el-Shuqafa are one of the best-preserved Alexandrian necropolis complexes from the Roman period. A modern tourist can descend into the catacombs much like an ancient visitor would have, allowing today’s visitor a shared experience with the past. Because Hypogeum I of the site is known primarily for its mixture of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman decorative elements, scholarship on the site is primarily descriptive, focusing on the visual components of the site that show evidence for cultural mixing or “hybridity”. A multi- sensorial approach, however, has yet to be taken.

Dr. David Goldberg, UC Humanities Research Institute

David Theo Goldberg is the Director of the University of California Humanities Research Institute. Formerly Director and Professor of the School of Justice Studies, a law and social science program, at Arizona State University, he is the author of Racist Culture: Philosophy and the Politics of Meaning (1993), Racial Subjects: Writing on Race in America (1997), Ethical Theory and Social Issues (1990/1995), The Racial State (2002), The Threat of Race (2009), and co-author of The Future of Thinking (2010).

Janelle Levy, "Kingston As City And Plantation: The Racial Organization Of Space In A Black Atlantic City"

Having a population of over 90% African descent, Jamaica is easily described as a Black Nation. However, the logic of its colonial past which are embedded in its institutions and built environment are patently Anti-Black. Much like a plantation, Jamaica's capital, Kingston, is not distinguished in the existence of black life everywhere within the cityscape. Rather, racial hegemony is defined by the very few places deemed fit for non-Black life.

Jason Palmer, "Sacred White Places of Color: Peruvians Temple Mormonism"

There are white spaces. There are spaces of color. There are spaces where “Racism Takes Place” (Lipsitz 2011, title). But can there be white spaces of color? It is hard to imagine a space on the globe whiter than the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saint’s newest edifice: The Arequipa, Peru Temple. Not only is Arequipa known as La Cuidad Blanca (the white city), every last detail of Arequipa’s newly dedicated Mormon temple is as white as it can be, from the belt- buckles of its brown-skinned workers, to the covers of the iPads used to show its sacred training videos.

Ian Baran, "Planning In The Insurgent (Under)commons"

Planning and constructing egalitarian worlds necessitates thinking through the interconnectedness of areas of high and low density using study and research that engages in liberatory praxis. By emphasizing the egalitarian horizon, I aim to push notions of planning through an abolitionist approach that includes an critical environmentalist ethic situated within racial capitalism and the Black Radical Tradition.

MARIANNA REIS, "Urban (In)Formality And The Ambivalence Of Infrastructural Upgrade In Nazareth"

Nazareth, with a population of nearly 80,000, is the largest Palestinian city in Israel. But, if you ask local residents, Nazareth is more of an overgrown village: it is dense and overcrowded, suffers from widespread infrastructural disrepair, and has developed in spite of decades of government policies of non-planning in Arab communities, which lie at the margins of the Israeli state. Informality, therefore, is a key feature shaping Nazareth’s urban landscape, which likewise shapes residents’ identities and sense of belonging.

Dr. Jennifer Terry, UCI Gender and Sexuality Studies

Since January 2003, Jennifer Terry has been a professor of Women’s Studies/Gender & Sexuality Studies with affiliations in Anthropology and Comparative Literature at the University of California at Irvine. Her scholarship is concentrated in feminist cultural studies; science and technology studies; comparative and historical formations of gender, race, and sexuality; critical approaches to modernity; state-sponsored violence and biomedicine; and American studies in transnational perspective. She was a visiting professor at Columbia University for Spring 2014.