Eight U-M lecturers and tenure-track faculty have received 2024 summer fellowships at the Institute for the Humanities. A cohort of eleven U-M 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 fellows and the topics of their research projects are:
Summer 2024 Fellows
Angela Berkley, lecturer II; 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; English language and literature, Sweetland Center for Writing
“Queer Horror: New Perspectives on the Chilling and Macabre”
Annica Cuppetelli, lecturer II, art and design
“The Jumpsuit: Challenging Gender Roles”
John J. Valadez, professor; film, television, and media
“The Latin Lens”
Katherine Davis, assistant professor, Middle East studies
“Writing Knowledge: Egyptian Grammar and Scholarship in the Late Period”
Madhumita Lahiri, associate professor, English language and literature
“How We Hate Now: Xenophobia in the Age of Antiracism”
Sherina Feliciano-Santos, associate professor, anthropology
“Regimenting Perceptions”
T Hetzel, lecturer II, Sweetland Center for Writing
A zine series on perimenopause and a zine photo series on memory and aging
2024-2025 Faculty Fellows
Stephen Berrey, associate professor; American culture, history
Helmut F. Stern Faculty Fellow
“Race, Memory, and the Invention of Small-Town America”
Umayyah Cable, assistant professor; American culture; film, television, and media
Richard & Lillian Ives Faculty Fellow
“The Act: Performativity and Imperial Homophobia in Transnational Arab Culture Wars”
Jennifer Hsieh, assistant professor, anthropology
Hunting Family Faculty Fellow
“The Hearing Subject: Noise and Sociality in Urban Taiwan”
Nancy Khalil, assistant professor, American culture
Charles P. Brauer Faculty Fellow (winter '25)
“Imams of Us: Decentralized Religion, Religious Freedom, and the Establishment of U.S. Islam”
Jacob Lederman, associate professor; sociology, anthropology, and criminal justice at U-M Flint
Norman Freehling Visiting Fellow
“Join the Conversation!: How Placemaking Conquered Community Development”
Alyssa Paredes, assistant professor, anthropology
Steelcase Faculty Fellow
“The Karmic Ecologies of Plantation Capitalism in Asia’s Banana Republic”
Melissa Phruksachart, assistant professor; film, television, and media
John Rich Faculty Fellow
“Archives of Embarrassment: Playing Asian on Cold War U.S. Television”
Gayle Rubin, associate professor; anthropology, women’s and gender studies
Jean Yokes Woodhead Faculty Fellow
“The Feminist Sex Wars: A Retrospective Exploration”
Niloofar Sarlati, assistant professor; English language and literature, comparative literature
John Rich Faculty Fellow
“Suspicious Gifts and Speculative Translations: Persian and English Exchange in the Long Nineteenth Century”
Paolo Squatriti, professor; history, Romance languages and literatures
Helmut F. Stern Faculty Fellow
“The ‘Material Eucharist’ in Early Medieval Europe”
Emilia Yang, assistant professor, art and design
Hunting Family Faculty Fellow
“Rebellious Memories: Expanded Archives and Technologies in the Americas”
2024-2025 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, 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
Richard & Lillian Ives 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”
