Brittany Johnson
Current Bio: Brittany is now working with SURF, supporting undergraduate research. Haas Scholars Project: Brittany’s project will first explore the possibilities and limitations of fictional testimony to enact a process of trauma recovery. She will plumb the formal and imagerial depths of Charlotte Brontë’s novels Jane Eyre and Villette against a background of theoretical work engaged with trauma. She will narrow her critical eye upon the ways in which these two novels articulate their respective heroines psychological encounters with inaccessible stores of traumatic memory through narrative acts of viewing. Brittany […]
Marco A. Flores
Though growing rapidly, the literature on the displacement of immigrants within the U.S. rarely addresses queer undocumented immigrants. By engaging with theories of affect, Marco’s project will explore the experiences of displacement queer undocumented immigrants encounter in their search for home. Through qualitative interviews, Marco will bring together two seemingly unrelated identities — “queer” and “immigrant” — exploring the complications of experience and sentiment driven by the dwelling that takes place in search of home; an engagement of the body in relation to a fragmented self. Ultimately, by illuminating forms […]
Clarissa Arafiles
The body of the slain journalist, elevated to heroic proportions, has become indispensable in contemporary constructions of Filipino nationalism and democracy. This project will compare two episodes in the history of Philippine media that fortify the journalists presence in the Filipino imagination: the three-day broadcast by Radio Veritas during the 1986 People Power Revolution and the 2009 Maguindanao Massacre. Between June and August, Clarissa will engage in archival research at the National Library of the Philippines in Manila and conduct interviews with news media personnel and anti-impunity campaigners. She will […]
Samantha Alford
Figurines in the shape of humans, animals, and inanimate objects, such as furniture, have been found in excavations throughout the archaeological site of Mycenae, a Bronze Age settlement and palatial center. Samantha will investigate the production patterns of these figurines by analyzing archaeological data from a Mycenaean ceramics center, Petsas House. By comparing these figurines to those from other Mycenae excavation sites, she will attempt to make inferences about the distribution of figurines and the social structure of Mycenae. Previous scholarship has suggested that Mycenaean religion was socially stratified, with […]
Shawna Gubera
Shawna will travel to New York and Los Angeles to collect her primary text, which will be an extensive photographic record of static advertisements displayed in public space. Using this index of images, along with personal interviews gathering individuals’ responses to advertising, she will produce a collection of lyric poetry that investigates the boundary between the poetic arts and an image-oriented culture. By means of ekphrasis, an aesthetic technique traditionally used to mediate between two art forms, these poems will render the visual constituents of advertising imagery into the temporally […]
Alice Yeh
Foreign language education in a study-abroad setting is taken for granted as a means of acquiring fluency and cultural competency. But for a language without a living space, as Latin arguably is, what is it like to be physically situated in a concrete, historical locale without a native community of speakers? Based in an immersion program in Rome, Alice’s research will focus on the relationship between techniques of instruction and students acquisition and transformation of Latin. She will investigate the boundary between a more immersive approach and the method of […]
Lauren Crow
Modernity is characterized by its inclination towards increased speed, production, and efficiency. In most commercially viable theater dance productions this manifests itself as the propensity for constant motion and the execution of virtuosic movement. However, Berlin based choreographers Meg Stuart and Sasha Waltz disrupt dance’s ontology and escape the homogenizing temporalities of modernity by incorporating slower motion and stillness in their choreography. Through an analysis of their creative work, Lauren will expose discursive possibilities pertaining to the body, consumerism, and individualism in relation to both Western cultural theory and traditions […]
Danica Rodarmel
Current Bio: Previously an Equal Justice Works fellow at Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights working on bail reform and bail bonds issues. In Jan. 2020, Danica became the Policy Director of State Legislative Affairs at the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office. Haas Scholars Project: Among Dreams illuminates the collective, un-fixed identities of incarcerated individuals in the Bay Area by interweaving dream narratives and personal histories. The project will culminate in two publications: one book devoted to the inmates work and another devoted to Danica’s experiences with familial incarceration and prison […]
Thomas Carey
In political struggle, establishing the legitimacy of a cause is the key to founding and maintaining popular support. How then, do political prisoners labeled as “criminals” and “terrorists” by the governments they oppose proceed to gain a semblance of legitimacy? With this question in mind, Thomas will examine the condition of Irish political prisoners within the context of the modern British and Irish penal systems. He will trace the evolution of governmental and institutional policies, aimed at containing Nationalist combatants and suspected sympathizers, which exploited modes of extralegal incarceration. In […]
Barira Rashid
Since the fall of ex-president Hosni Mubarak, street art has become the most widespread form of political expression in Egypt since the Egyptian Revolution began on January 25th, 2011. As a means to proclaim the goals of the revolution and mock the military regime in power, Barira will further explore how political graffiti and street art have come to signify a powerful form of expression of social justice in the ongoing movement. Barira will travel to Cairo to document political graffiti and street art through photography and video, interview underground […]