Eight U-M lecturers and tenure-track faculty members have received 2024 summer fellowships at the Institute for the Humanities, and 11 faculty members and eight graduate students will be fellows at the institute during the 2024-25 academic year.
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 Middle East studies, sociology, anthropology, social work, art and design, and American culture.
The Institute for the Humanities facilitates work that examines humanities traditions broadly across space and time, deepens synergies among the humanities, the arts, and disciplines across the university, and brings the humanities to public life.
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 wide array of public and scholarly events, including public lectures, workshops and discussions.
The fellows and the topics of their research projects are:
Summer 2024 Fellows
Angela Berkley, lecturer II in English language and literature, Sweetland Center for Writing — Two long-form essays that will be a combination of memoir and literary criticism.
Gina Brandolino, lecturer IV in English language and literature, Sweetland Center for Writing — “Queer Horror: New Perspectives on the Chilling and Macabre.”
Annica Cuppetelli, lecturer II in art and design, Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design — “The Jumpsuit: Challenging Gender Roles.”
John J. Valadez, professor of film, television and media, LSA — “The Latin Lens.”
Katherine Davis, assistant professor of Middle East studies, LSA — “Writing Knowledge: Egyptian Grammar and Scholarship in the Late Period.”
Madhumita Lahiri, associate professor of English language and literature, LSA — “How We Hate Now: Xenophobia in the Age of Antiracism.”
Sherina Feliciano-Santos, associate professor of anthropology, LSA — “Regimenting Perceptions.”
T Hetzel, lecturer II, Sweetland Center for Writing — A zine series on perimenopause and a zine photo series on memory and aging.
2024-25 Faculty Fellows
Stephen Berrey, associate professor of American culture and of history, LSA; Helmut F. Stern Faculty Fellow — “Race, Memory, and the Invention of Small-Town America.”
Umayyah Cable, assistant professor of American culture and of film, television and media, LSA; Richard & Lillian Ives Faculty Fellow — “The Act: Performativity and Imperial Homophobia in Transnational Arab Culture Wars.”
Jennifer Hsieh, assistant professor of anthropology, LSA; Hunting Family Faculty Fellow — “The Hearing Subject: Noise and Sociality in Urban Taiwan.”
Nancy Khalil, assistant professor of American culture, LSA; Charles P. Brauer Faculty Fellow (winter 2025) — “Imams of Us: Decentralized Religion, Religious Freedom, and the Establishment of U.S. Islam.”
Jacob Lederman, associate professor of sociology, anthropology and criminal justice, UM-Flint; Norman Freehling Visiting Fellow — “Join the Conversation!: How Placemaking Conquered Community Development.”
Alyssa Paredes, assistant professor of anthropology, LSA; Steelcase Faculty Fellow — “The Karmic Ecologies of Plantation Capitalism in Asia’s Banana Republic.”
Melissa Phruksachart, assistant professor of film, television and media, LSA; John Rich Faculty Fellow — “Archives of Embarrassment: Playing Asian on Cold War U.S. Television.”
Gayle Rubin, associate professor of anthropology and of women’s and gender studies, LSA; Jean Yokes Woodhead Faculty Fellow — “The Feminist Sex Wars: A Retrospective Exploration.”
Niloofar Sarlati, assistant professor of English language and literature and of comparative literature, LSA; John Rich Faculty Fellow — “Suspicious Gifts and Speculative Translations: Persian and English Exchange in the Long Nineteenth Century.”
Paolo Squatriti, professor of history and of romance languages and literatures, LSA; Helmut F. Stern Faculty Fellow — “The ‘Material Eucharist’ in Early Medieval Europe.”
Emilia Yang, assistant professor of art and design, Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design; Hunting Family Faculty Fellow — “Rebellious Memories: Expanded Archives and Technologies in the Americas.”
2024-25 Graduate Student Fellows
Samantha Adams, English language and literature, women’s and gender studies; James A. Winn Graduate Fellow — “A Body of Water Inside Me: Water Shaping Black Life and Literature Beyond the Atlantic.”
Jahnabi Chanchani, Asian languages and cultures; Richard & Lillian Ives Graduate Fellow — “Animals Like Us: Interspecies Relationships in the Sanskritic Literary Imagination in Early India.”
Yun Chen; anthropology and social work; Mary Fair Croushore Graduate Fellow — “Monopsonizing Experimentation: Making Persons and Orders through Social Work in China’s Anti-Drug Field.”
Luiza Duarte Caetano, comparative literature; Sylvia “Duffy” Engle Graduate Fellow — “Revolution, Violence, and Literature: Restaging the French Revolution.”
Pragya Kaul, history; Mary Fair Croushore Graduate Fellow — “Refugees in Empire: Jewish Refugees and British India, 1921-1951.”
Janaki Phillips, anthropology; Graduate Fellow — “Divining Uncertain Futures: A Comparative Study of Contemporary Tarot Practice.”
Joseph Song, English language and literature; James A. Winn Graduate Fellow — “Race Event (!): Tracing Uncertainty and Racial Triangulation in Contemporary Asian American Cultural Production from 2008 to Present.”
Andrea Valedon-Trapote, history; William & Sally Searle Graduate Fellow — “Crafting the Mongol Sovereign: Merging the Qa’an and Huangdi in the Yuan (1271-1368) Court.”
