Meet the 2021 SLLC colloquium presenters.
Gayatri Aich is currently pursuing her Bachelor’s degree in Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University. She has performed a dance recital at the 2019 National Seminar on “Nation, Identity and Creative Expression” organized by the Centre for Studies in Latin American Literature and Culture, Jadavpur University. She has presented her paper at the 2020 International Gender and Sexuality Conference organized by the Women’s Research Center and BGLTQ+ Student Center at Oklahoma University. She has presented a paper at the 2021 International Conference on Canadian Studies organized by the Centre for Canadian Studies at Jadavpur University. Her research interests include Indigenous Studies, Border Studies, Performance Studies, Gender and Sexuality, and Queer Studies.
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Hello, my name is Kajill, my preferred pronouns are she/her/hers and I am currently in my final year studying for my Master’s in Fine Art with Emily Carr University of Art+Design. I was born in the City of Calgary and here, a place I consider “home”, I acknowledge the traditional territories of the Niitsitapi (Blackfoot) and the people of the Treaty 7 region in Southern Alberta, which includes the Siksika, the Piikani, the Kainai, the Tsuut’ina and the Stoney Nakoda First Nations, including Chiniki, Bearspaw, and Wesley First Nations. It is here, where my own history starts, and for that I am thankful. Familial narrative, history and story-telling form the foundation of my creative work. As a fourth born daughter to immigrant parents, it is through engaging with stories from the women in my family that I find a grounding spirituality in our womanhood – something that connects us to each other as Punjabi-Sikh women. I am deeply invested in anti-racism and methods of decolonizing in all aspects of education, work and life. As an advocate for equity across all intersects of identity and community engagement, it is an honour to be a part of this community of researchers and creatives here at the SLLC colloquium for Graduate Students, thank you.
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Jacklyn Brickman is a visual artist whose work entangles science fact with fiction to address social and environmental concerns by employing natural objects, processes, and technology. Her work spans installation, video and performance, with special interest in cross-disciplinary collaboration and social engagement. Fellowships include The National Academy of Sciences, U.C. Davis, Chaire arts et sciences, The Ohio State University, Jentel Foundation, Popps Packing, National Endowment for the Arts and Erb Family Foundation, Connecting Heritage- Maryland Milestones/ Anacostia Trails Heritage Area and the Pyramid Atlantic Art Center. She has exhibited her work in the US, Canada, France, India, and Slovenia
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Kara Cybanski is a Master's candidate in World Literatures and Cultures at the University of Ottawa and is working on her memoir under the supervision of Dr. Rosalía Cornejo-Parriego (Dept. of Modern Languages and Literatures). Her research on LGBTQ Spanish literature is currently funded by the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship, received through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). She is also a Research Assistant for Dr. Jorge Carlos Guerrero (Dept. of Modern Languages and Literatures). Kara holds a B.A. in Spanish from the University of Ottawa and will begin her PhD in Spanish there in Fall 2021 under the supervision of Dr. Cornejo-Parriego.
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Michael Decker is an MA candidate in English at the University of Idaho, currently studying the environmental humanities. His academic interests include adapting humanities scholarship to regional case studies and scientific data to provide more expansive and productive environmental discourse. He also works on Communicating Fire, an NSF funded grant project collecting oral history data to reimagine fire science communication in the state of Idaho.
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Erika De Vivo is a PhD candidate in cultural anthropology at the University of Torino. During her PhD studies, she has been a visiting PhD student at SESAM the Centre for Sami Studies at UiT the Arctic University of Tromsø (Norway) for 16 months. She is currently completing her PhD thesis on the indigenous Sami festival Márkomeannu. Her research interests include indigenous Sami worldviews, Sami art and political activism as well as the history of cultural Anthropology and of Sami studies in Italy.
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Aaron Hahn is a Master’s degree candidate at Teachers College Columbia University and holds a BA in English literature. Throughout his teaching career, spanning over a decade, Aaron has focused on language, literature, and literacy. He published two books on writing and has presented his research results in many conferences in Japan, Korea, Germany, and the USA. He is currently working on his new book Mythologies from Forgotten Women’s Lands in the Far East to explore how women's freedom in sexuality, economy, and spirituality in mythological narratives is closely linked to the maturity of gender equality in society from a comparative perspective.
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I am Jordan Foster. For the past few semesters, I have been the Graduate Assistant for the Germanic Studies Department at the University of Maryland, and I am now working on my graduate thesis about German identity and Nazi stereotypes in comic books and other forms of media and entertainment. I earned my first bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland in Physics in 2013 and my second bachelor’s degree in Germanic Studies 2017. I have always had a deep passion for academia, in both science and the humanities, and find interdisciplinary collaboration and research as both important and fascinating. During my time as a graduate student, I have learned about the Environmental Humanities, and how they are able to exhibit social/environmental crises from new and profound perspectives. In my free time I enjoy playing tennis and video games.
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Marietta Kosma is a first year PhD student in English at the University of Oxford at Lady Margaret Hall. Her research interests lie in the twentieth- century American literature, gender studies and queer studies. Her research lies on the construction of black female identity in transnational neo-slave narratives. Her educational background includes a Master in English from JSU and a Master in Ancient Greek theater from the Aegean University. Some of her publications are ‘The bloody problem of PMS research’ and ‘The Force of Nonviolence - An Ethico-Political Bind: Book Review’. She is a contributing writer in Cherwell and a book reviewer for the H-Atlantic.
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Jacob Lacuesta is a MA student of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University studying visual culture. His thesis is focused on analyzing the pedagogical frameworks of Philippine Second Wave film directors in order to develop a liberated internet. His current interests include film, technocultural studies, performance, and identity. |
Soren Larsen is from Copenhagen, Denmark and has a MA in English Literature from University of Virginia and an MA in Comparative Literature from the University of Copenhagen. He is currently a Ph.D. Candidate in Germanic Studies at Cornell University. He works on the intersection of Lacanian psychoanalysis and German-language literature and philosophy. |
Amanda Caterina Leong is a Ph.D. Candidate from the University of California, Merced’s Interdisciplinary Humanities Program. Her research looks at the ways early modern women from the Safavid and Mughal Empires were central to defining notions of ethics, power, and empire-building that shaped the early modern Persianate world. |
My name is Rachel Mano. I am a graduate student at Utah State University studying Second Language Teaching. I am in my 3rd semester in the program. My goal upon graduation is to teach at the university level. I currently teach beginner level Spanish and I love it! I love the warm summer weather and spending time outside with my family. My husband is a professor of computer science at USU; so, teaching is what we do! Together, we have 4 children. Our oldest is getting married this spring!
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Adrianna (she/her) is a graduate student in Cultural Studies and Critical Theory at McMaster University in the Department of English & Cultural studies. Her research interests include disability studies, biopolitics, and ecocriticism. Her current research uses digital studies research methods to explore issues of labour relations in conversation with crip-theory. |
Ari Perez Montes, a Ronald E. McNair Fellow, is a graduate student in the Department of Communication at the University of Maryland. They earned their Bachelor’s degree from California State University, Monterey Bay with concentrations in Communication Studies and Ethnic & Gender Studies and a minor in Psychology. In their research they try to center the importance of community engagement and how their identities (un/privileged) grant them access to the communities they work with, but also help them be reflexive in how they navigate certain spaces. Broadly their research interests are exploring the formations of queer and trans* identities & spaces.
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Manasvini Rai is a PhD research scholar in English in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur, in India. Her two Master’s degrees are in English and in Mass Communication. Her undergraduate degree was in Mathematics (Hons.) from Lady Shriram College for Women at the University of Delhi. Manasvini’s research interests include Intersectional Feminism; Subaltern and Race Studies; Contemporary British Women’s Writing. Her blogs spanning the creative and the critical can be read at www.thinkpanoptic.wordpress.com and www.themosaicjournal.wordpress.com.
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Pedro Réquio has a degree in History at the Faculty of Arts, University of Coimbra. Master in Contemporary History by the same institution. His Master's thesis was entitled Cultural and Political Change of the Academy of Coimbra: The case of Via Latina (1958-1962). He is a junior researcher in the 25AprilPTLab project and is currently doing his PhD in “Discursos: Culture, History and Society”. His dominance focuses on political and cultural history and the links between art, ideologies and the exercise of power.
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Seval Merve Sarıhan recently completed her MA in Comparative Literature at King’s College London and her undergraduate studies in Turkish and Western Languages and Literatures at Boğaziçi University. Her research interests range from memory studies, hybrid narratives and trauma writing, war literature to adaptation studies. |
Sergio Schargel is a Ph.D candidate in Literature at USP, Ph.D candidate in Social Communication at UERJ, Ph.D candidate in Political Science at UFF and master candidate in Political Science at UNIRIO. He holds a master degree in Literature from PUC-Rio, as well as bachelors in Social Communication, Journalism and Social Communication, Advertising and Marketing, both from PUC-Rio. His research and artistic production are focused on the relationship between literature and politics, covering themes such as political theory, post-memory, anti-Semitism and the work of Sylvia Serafim Thibau. Contact: [email protected] / [email protected].
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My name is Virgina Shewfelt. I received my Bachelor of Arts in German and Anthropology from Memorial University of Newfoundland in 2016. I earned my Master of Arts in German from University of Toronto in 2018, and have remained at U of T's Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures for my doctoral studies. I am currently a 3rd year doctoral student with a research focus on Holocaust memory in Germany, particularly in the film and literature of East Germany.
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Anindita Shome is a Ph.D. Candidate at the UGC Centre for the Study of Indian Diaspora, University of Hyderabad, India. Her research interests lie in the literary and socio-cultural aspects of the South Asian migration and diaspora. She takes a keen interest in the areas of Youth Studies, Digital Humanities, and Transnational Studies. She can be reached at [email protected] Twitter Handle: @Anindita1089 |
Karen Siu is a PhD student in English at Rice University. Her interests include contemporary Asian Anglophone literature, ecocriticism, and climate justice. Her work concentrates on how contemporary Asian Anglophone novels imagine a way forward from global emergencies, such as climate change and COVID-19, in relation to experiences of diaspora, discrimination, and immigration. |
Shannon Steiner is a first-year graduate student in the M.A program at the University of Idaho where she is also teaching composition and rhetoric. Previously, Shannon earned her Bachelors in English Literature from the University of Idaho in 2012. Currently, Shannon lives in Moscow, Idaho with her husband and two children. |
Sarena Tien is a PhD student at Cornell University. Her current field of inquiry explores questions of women’s solidarity and resistance in Francophone African and Asian literature and cinema. Other research interests include the intersections of race, gender, and identity and how issues of patriarchy, colonialism, and exophony inform the work of women writers. |
Scott Tsuchitani (he/him) is a visual and media artist and Ph.D. candidate in Cultural Studies at University of California, Davis. His guerrilla interventions combine tactical media and performance with intellectual activism to perform critical public pedagogy and activate audience participation with the intention of transforming racial discourse. His art has been shown in ten museums around the US, presented in Europe and Asia, and published in academic books and journals in art history, museum studies, social policy, and Asian and Asian American studies, as well as mainstream and community media.
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Nadine Valcin is an award-winning filmmaker and media artist based in Toronto, Canada. She is currently an MFA candidate in the Digital Futures program at OCAD University as well as the Archive/Counter Archive artist-in-residence at Library and Archives Canada. She is a recipient of the OCADU Presidential scholarship, two Chalmers Arts Fellowships and a Drama Prize from the National Screen Institute. She has a growing interest in exploring immersive storytelling and the interaction of physical and virtual space through projection mapping, augmented and virtual reality.
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Emily Wieder is completing her M.A. in French and Francophone Studies at the University of Iowa, where she will earn her Ph.D. as well. Focused on Surrealism and feminism, her research evaluates performances of gender in written, visual, and theatrical forms. She has recently presented papers with the Association for French and Francophone Studies in Ireland and at UCLA. |