Blog
The History of Radical Women in the Cold War Era
Mar. 7, 2023—Allison Schachter is a 2022-2023 RPW Center Faculty Fellow. This year’s group is exploring the theme of “Mending and Transforming.” I am currently working on the history of radical women in the Cold War era. My research focuses on Black and Jewish women intellectuals who were the subjects of censure as leftists, feminists, and Jewish...
Transamazonic Bondage: Violence, Networks, and Race (Brazil, 1688-1798)
Mar. 2, 2023—Alexandre Pelegrino is a 2022-23 Graduate Student Fellow from the Department of History. It is beyond question that the enslavement of Indigenous Americans played a decisive role in the formation of colonial societies in the Americas. Yet, most people assume that it was a practice confined to the early moments of colonization. In other words, Indigenous...
The Trans in “Just Transition”
Feb. 9, 2023—Nicholas Reich is a 2022-23 “Mending and Transforming” Graduate Student Fellow. How to “transition” to a world that isn’t fuel dependent? Maybe this was always a utopic question. Fuel scholar Heidi C. M. Scott explains, “We can’t even see oil because we look through oil glasses…we are, ourselves, petroleum products.” Toothbrushes, lip balms, sex toys, the...
Stories We Tell about Addiction
Dec. 8, 2022—Arleen Tuchman is a 2022-2023 RPW Center Faculty Fellow. This year’s group is exploring the theme of “Mending and Transforming.” The stories we tell matter. They can do harm, as do the stories we tell about addiction in the United States today. They create borders, separating people with addictions and their families from their communities....
“It’s been getting weirder. I can’t wait for next year.”
Nov. 15, 2022—Diana Heney is a 2022-2023 RPW Center Faculty Fellow. This year’s group is exploring the theme of “Mending and Transforming.” “It’s been getting weirder. I can’t wait for next year.” This is the insight a colleague shared with me in the final session of my first trip to Imagining America. They had been to several previous...
Creating a More Equitable and Environmentally Friendly Food System in the U.S.
Nov. 2, 2022—Alex Korsunsky is a 2022-23 “Mending and Transforming” Graduate Student Fellow. Most Americans are at least broadly aware of the problems with our food system: it is environmentally unsustainable, economically unviable for small farmers, and built on a system of racialized labor exploitation, with most of the hardest and most poorly paid work performed by...
Exploring the Religious and Spiritual Complexity of Black Activism in the U.S.
Sep. 13, 2022—Martina Schaefer is a 2022-23 Graduate Student Fellow from the Department of History. Upon entering graduate school, I was not quite clear what aspects of U.S. history I wanted to examine in my dissertation project. I had various ideas and knew that I wanted to learn more about the Black radical tradition. For my first-year...
Needlework saved my mother’s life. Literally.
Sep. 6, 2022—Laura Carpenter is a 2022-2023 RPW Center Faculty Fellow. This year’s group is exploring the theme of “Mending and Transforming.” Needlework saved my mother’s life. Literally. On a Monday evening in February 2021, I got a text from one of my mom’s cronies. Carole hadn’t logged on to Zoom with her crochet and knitting group...
Thinking in Language
Apr. 25, 2022—Meet Laura Carter-Stone, a 2021-2022 RPW Center Environments Graduate Student Fellow. She is a PhD student in the Teaching, Learning, and Diversity program at Peabody College. Her research explores how the performing arts–especially the art of dramatic improvisation–can create emotionally engaging and collaborative language and literacy learning environments. What is your research about and why does...
Expanding the Renaissance
Apr. 18, 2022—Willnide Lindor is the 2021-2022 Elizabeth E. Fleming Fellow from the Department of English. Her research interests include: Renaissance Lyric Poetry and Drama, Early Modern Race Studies, Gender and Sexuality, and Postcolonial Theory. What is your research about and why does it matter? My current research explores nuanced depictions of blackness through the intersection of...