News from the School of IAS
Category: Cultural Studies
Kari Lerum: Death, dying & pedagogy
Students examine death in the course Death Rituals, taught by IAS faculty member Kari Lerum, who hopes to instill a deeper comfort about an often-taboo topic. “This class has opened up so many conversations I otherwise might not have had with students,” said Lerum. “Some of our classes and office hours have been emotional, but this space and this course have also been restorative.
August 19, 2020
Priya Frank appointed as SAM’s first Director of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
Priya Frank has been appointed as Director of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at Seattle Art Museum (SAM). This new roles grows out of Frank’s ongoing work at SAM to integrate racial equity into the museum’s strategic priorities. ...
August 11, 2020
Dan Berger interviewed about decarceration in the time of COVID
IAS faculty member Dan Berger was interviewed on KUOW's The Record (scroll down on the page to hear just Berger's segment) about decarceration in the time of COVID. Berger discussed the threat that prisons and jails, which account for more than three-quarters of outbreak clusters, pose in a pandemic. He also highlighted similar issues in ...
August 6, 2020
Yolanda Padilla publishes “Approaches to Teaching Early Twentieth-Century Mexican American Literature in Undergraduate Classrooms”
IAS faculty member Yolanda Padilla published "Approaches to Teaching Early Twentieth-Century Mexican American Literature in Undergraduate Classrooms" in Writing / Righting History: Twenty-Five Years of Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage. In her chapter, Padilla reflects on how U.S. literary studies' neglect of recovered Latinx texts results in a lost opportunity for important field transformation. She ...
July 20, 2020
Meshell Sturgis’s essay on Interrupting Privilege published on Media Rise
Alum Meshell Sturgis’s essay has been published in Media Rise’s special issue, Quarantined Across Borders (QAB). Media Rise is a shared collaborative space for artists, educators, storytellers, and activists; the QAB initiative represents 80+ authors across 30+ countries sharing their quarantine stories.
July 17, 2020
Dan Berger says incarcerated people must be freed to halt virus spread
When the coronavirus pandemic hit Washington state, IAS faculty member Dan Berger thought immediately of prisons. As co-curator of the Washington Prison History Project, Berger joined a chorus of activists and scholars calling for Gov. Jay Inslee to release many of the 19,000 people incarcerated in the state’s prisons and jails. Read his interview in University of Washington Magazine.
June 30, 2020
Helen K. Thomas receives Fulbright Award to conduct participatory research in Nigeria
IAS alum Helen K. Thomas (M.A. in Cultural Studies, '16) has received a Fulbright Award to conduct research on using literature to cultivate empowerment and global citizenship in girls in Nigeria. Helen has continued to pursue her research interests in black representation and young adult fiction and its formative power for young black readers. She will be pursuing ...
June 18, 2020
Jed Murr receives grant for Black Arts Northwest project
IAS faculty member Jed Murr has received a UW Bothell Scholarship, Research and Creative Practice Seed Grant for his project, Black Arts Northwest, Phase One. The grant will enable the creation of a publicly accessible, interactive online digital history platform dedicated to preserving and sharing the story of a Black Power mural created in Seattle in the early 1970s in relation to the rich history, culture, and politics of Black Seattle. The digital platform constitutes ...
June 8, 2020
Alumna of the Year: Priya Frank
Priya Frank has been recognized with a 2020 University of Washington Bothell Alumni of the Year Award. A 2011 graduate of the Master of Arts in Cultural Studies program, Frank is the Associate Director for Community Programs at Seattle Art Museum (SAM), where she focuses on partnerships, programming, and equity-related initiatives. Frank is also the founding chair of SAM’s Equity Team and chair of the Seattle Arts Commission.
May 29, 2020
Jed Murr receives Fulbright US Scholar award to Slovenia
IAS faculty member Jed Murr has received a Fulbright US Scholar award to Slovenia, where he will work with students, educators, and cultural workers in two major institutions to explore the possibilities and problems that emerge when performing the transnational work of American Studies, Black Studies, and Ethnic Studies in classrooms and arts spaces outside of the US university. ...
May 15, 2020