Eight U-M lecturers and tenure-track faculty have received 2025 summer fellowships at the Institute for the Humanities, a unit within LSA. And a cohort of eight U-M faculty members and eight graduate students will be fellows at the institute during the 2025-26 academic year.
The Institute for the Humanities supports work that examines humanities traditions broadly across space and time; strengthens connections among the humanities, the arts, and disciplines across the university; and brings the humanities to public life.
The two cohorts will take up residence at the institute during their fellowship periods, forming an intellectual community while pursuing original research and participating in regular, cross-disciplinary fellows’ seminars.
Fellowship recipients represent diverse disciplines, this year including psychology, education, anthropology, English, art and design, and history.
Each year it provides fellowships for U-M faculty, graduate students and visiting scholars who work on scholarly and artistic projects. It also offers a public humanities internship program and a wide array of public and scholarly events, including lectures, workshops and discussions.
The Institute for the Humanities Gallery — a fully curated, vibrant exhibition space — is known for bringing to campus artists whose work explores current social issues and concerns.
Since its inauguration in 1987, the institute has granted fellowships to more than 400 U-M faculty, graduate students and visitors.
The fellows and the topics of their research projects are:
Summer 2025 Fellows
- Sally Clegg, lecturer III in art and design, Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design — “The Town With One Side.”
- Charles H.F. Davis III, assistant professor of education, Marsal Family School of Education — “Imagined Futures of Black Faculty.”
- Kelly Hoffer, Helen Zell Visiting Professor of Creative Writing and lecturer III of English language and literature, LSA — “Tactile Poetics.”
- Carleen Hsu, lecturer III of film, television and media, LSA — Short documentary about Raoul Wallenberg.
- Joshua Kupetz, lecturer II of English language and literature, LSA — Two articles focusing on poetic and narrative form as they relate to disability aesthetics.
- Raymond McDaniel, lecturer IV in Sweetland Center for Writing, LSA — Book-length project currently titled NEMO.
- Veerendra Prasad, lecturer II of film, television and media, LSA — “Writing the Ensemble Film.”
- David Ward, lecturer II of English language and literature, LSA — “little search parties.”
2025-2026 Faculty Fellows
- Francine Banner, professor of sociology, UM-Dearborn; Norman Freehling Visiting Faculty Fellow — “Assumptions of Risk: Narratives of Gender, Complicity, and Culpability.”
- Rona Carter, associate professor of psychology, LSA; associate professor of education, Marsal School; and associate professor of social work, School of Social Work; Digital Scholarship Faculty Fellow — “Empowering Black Girls Through Digital Narratives: Exploring the Social Implications of Off-Time Pubertal Development.”
- Luciana Chamorro, assistant professor of anthropology, LSA; Hunting Family Faculty Fellow — “Afterlives of Revolution: Political Attachments in Post-Revolutionary Nicaragua.”
- Nachiket Chanchani, associate professor of history of art, LSA; Helmut F. Stern Faculty Fellow — “Of Vessels and Values: The Arts of Survivance at a Crossroads of Asia.”
- Jennifer Jones, associate professor of history and of women’s and gender studies, LSA; Jean Yokes Woodhead Faculty Fellow — “The (In)Visible Acquisitions of Ann Allen Shockley: An Intellectual Biography.”
- Daniel Nemser, associate professor of Spanish, LSA; John Rich Faculty Fellow — “The Great Circulation Machine: Imperial Logistics and Fugitive Practice in the Iberian Empire.”
- Ittai Orr, assistant professor of English language and literature, LSA; Norman and James Katz Faculty Fellow — “Before IQ: The Construction of Cognitive Difference in Antebellum American Literature.”
- Sanne Ravensbergen, assistant professor of history and of the International Institute, LSA; Steelcase Faculty Fellow — “Fabricating Law: A Material History of a Criminal Court in Colonial Indonesia.”
2025-2026 Graduate Fellows
- Maya Day, English language and literature; James A. Winn Graduate Fellow — “‘Leaking Poems:’ Reading Relations in Post-War U.S. Multiethnic Poetry.”
- Ana Guimarães, Romance languages and literatures; Mary Fair Croushore Graduate Fellow — “The Fiction of Dwelling.”
- Alanna Heatherly, classical studies; Sylvia “Duffy” Engle Graduate Fellow — “The Hermeneutics of Pain in the Roman Empire (1st-3rd c. C.E.): Pain and Identity Formation.”
- Julianna Loera-Wiggins, American culture; David and Mary Hunting Graduate Fellow — “Wild Tongues that Lash: Race, Class, and Citizenship in Chicago’s Latina Comedy Scene.”
- Mix Mann, history; David and Mary Hunting Graduate Fellow — “She Feels Like Home: Black Women and Queer Domesticity, 1859-1970.”
- Daniel Varela Corredor; anthropology, history; A. Bartlett Giamatti Graduate Fellow — “Gold doesn’t Like the Law: Property, Family, and Mining Practices among Afro-Colombians in Chocó, 1851-1935.”
- Lai Wo, anthropology; Marc and Constance Jacobson Graduate Fellow — “Navigating Ambivalence: Intimate Labor Migration from Indonesia to Hong Kong and Back.”
- Qingyi Zeng, comparative literature; William and Sally Searle Graduate Fellow — “Refracting Species: Environment, Technology, and Miracles in Contemporary East Asia.”
