Melina Packer Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow in Gender & Sexuality Studies (2020-2022) Faculty Mentor: Jade Sasser Top three texts I would take to a desert island: The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, Mating by Norman Rush Favorite Activity: Hiking with my dog Something people might be amazed to know about me: I am deathly afraid of swimming. A ‘famous’ scholar I would love to meet: Michelle Murphy Theme song: “I Want to Break Free” - Queen URL [...]

Claudia Holguín Mendoza Department: Hispanic Studies Rank: Assistant Professor # of years at UCR: 2.5 years Top three texts I would take to a desert island: “Graciela Iturbide’s Mexico: Photographs,” “The Tao Te Ching,” and “The Dispossessed” by Ursula Le Guin. Favorite things to do: Hiking and gardening. Something people might be amazed to know about me: I can cook very tasty food. An “adventure” I am looking forward to, post-pandemic… Traveling! Theme songs: Betty Davis as an inspiration. Learn more about Claudia's work [...]

David Lo Advisory Committee Member, Center for Ideas and Society Department: Biomedical Sciences, School of Medicine Rank: Distinguished Professor, and Senior Associate Dean of Research # of years at UCR: 14 Top three texts I would take to a desert island: The Eighth Day of Creation, Horace Freeland Judson. (it’s a history of modern molecular biology); Joy of Cooking, Rombauer, Becker (enough said); A History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell (it’s fun for triggering internal arguments with the book) Favorite thing(s): Anything SciFi/ComicCon, and [...]

Worku Nida Developing African Studies Initiative Participant Department: Anthropology Rank: Assistant Teaching Professor of Anthropology # of years at UCR: This is my 5th year. Top three texts I would take to a desert island: 1) Mediocre, by Ijeoma Oluo, which I am reading now; 2) A Promised Land, by Barack Obama, 3) WE WANT TO DO MORE THAN SURVIVE, by Bettina Love. Favorite activities: Tennis in sport, music (Ethio-jazz, various ethnic music), love museums and open-markets, walking, kitfo (Ethiopian dish) Something people might [...]

Bella Merlin Advisory Committee Member, Center for Ideas and Society Department: Theatre Film and Digital Production Rank: Professor # of years at UCR: 7 Top three texts I would take to a desert island: The Complete Works of Shakespeare (because I haven't read them all yet); The Toe-Rags by Daphne Anderson (a poignant memoir of growing up in Southern Rhodesia by my husband Miles's mother); The God on the Hill: Temple Poems from Tirupat by the fifteenth-century saint Annamayya (these poems wring my heart every time). Favorite things with favorite beings: Walking with my husband, [...]

Thomas Cogswell Department: History Rank: Distinguished Professor # of years at UCR: 21 Top three texts I would take to a desert island: Robert Caro's volumes on Lyndon Johnson, Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, and Melvin Bragg's podcast In Our Time. Favorite foods: A toss up. A nice Mysore Masala Dosa or Korean Tofu Hotpot. Something people might be amazed to know about me …. I love exploring cities, one neighborhood at a time. An “adventure” I am looking forward to: Returning to the Hoover Wilderness in [...]

Sherryl Vint Department: English/Media and Cultural Studies Rank: Professor # of years at UCR: 8 Top three texts I would take to a desert island: There is no way I could pick just three. It would depend on the day and the project and so would always change. Favorite entertainment: I love films, not just sf films, but films of many genres, periods, and countries. An “adventure” I am looking forward to, post-pandemic…I’d like to say travel, and certainly I love to visit ruins [...]

Eric Schwitzgebel Department: Philosophy Rank: Professor # of years at UCR: 23 (~44% of my life) Top three texts I would take to a desert island: The collected Borges, Montaigne, and Zhuangzi. See my Five Books interview on the philosophers of wonder! Favorite activity: Long walks in beautiful places. Or maybe, during a lecture, the well-crafted pause -- that silent moment when the attention of the audience slowly gathers. Something people might be amazed to know about me: I doubt that anything about me would [...]

Crystal Baik Mellon Second Project Fellow Department: Gender and Sexuality Studies Rank: Associate Professor (first year as a tenured professor) # of years at UCR: this is my 7th year at UCR Top three texts I would take to a desert island: Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider; Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart; Lisa Yoneyama, Hiroshima Traces. Favorite activity: Since the pandemic, I’ve taken up birding and 풍물 (poongmul/Korean drumming). Something people might be amazed to know about me: I’m an identical twin and my partner is [...]

Padma Rangarajan Mellon Humanities Fellow Department: English Rank: Associate Professor # of years at UCR: 3 Top three texts I would take to a desert island: The Mahabaratha, A Time of Gifts, David Copperfield. Favorite shows to stream: Sci-fi shows from the ‘80’s and ‘90’s. I love Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Babylon 5, all that stuff. Something people might be amazed to know about me: My father pierced my nose. It took him three tries. An “adventure” I am looking forward to, post-pandemic: Hugs. All [...]

Matthew King Mellon Humanities Fellow Department: Religious Studies Rank: Associate Professor # of years at UCR: 5 years Top three texts I would take to a desert island: Sakya Paṇḍita Sakya Lekshé, Annie Dillard Teaching a Stone to Talk, Michel de Certeau Heterologies. Favorite thing: a guitar and Anstruther Lake in my Canadian homeland of Kawartha Highlands Provincial Park. Favorite films: Three documentaries that I have seen in recent years that I regularly bring to my students—all imperfect portraits but which tend to leave [...]

Marissa Brookes Mellon Humanities Fellow Department: Political Science Rank: Assistant Professor # of years at UCR: I am in my 7th year now. Top three texts I would take to a desert island: Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation; Theda Skocpol’s States and Social Revolutions; Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States Currently listening to: Dillinger Four, Naked Raygun, Danny Brown, Malibu Ken A favorite record I encourage students to listen to is: Propagandhi’s 1993 How to Clean Everything. It’s a political punk classic. Website: [...]

Jody Benjamin Participant, Committee on African Studies Department: History Rank: Assistant Professor Educational background: Ph.D. in African and African American Studies with a concentration in African History, Harvard University, 2016 # of years at UCR: Four Top three texts I would take to a desert island: The best collection of photographs I could find; The Fortunes of Wangrin by Ahmadou Hampate Ba. The Source of Self-Regard by Toni Morrison. Favorite things: music: afrobeat, hip hop, bebop, jazz, reggae; places: libraries, museums, big cities (Dakar, Lagos, New York [...]

Victoria Reyes Participant, Mellon Advancing Intercultural Studies, Contested Histories Seminar Department: Sociology Rank: Assistant Professor # of years at UCR: Entering 4th year at UCR but 3rd year on campus because during my first year I was on leave for a Postdoc at University of Michigan Top three texts I would take to a desert island: This is a difficult one…I’d say I would take my phone and internet connection Favorite thing: Philippine brand dried mangoes Website: www.victoriadreyes.com Q. Your research agenda [...]

Juliet McMullin Convener, Inequities in Health, Faculty Commons Project Juliet's Stats: Department: Anthropology Rank: Professor Years at UCR: 14 Favorite Thing: Chocolate. It is such a favorite thing that I host bi-annual chocolate parties. Book I'm reading right now: Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot. Personal Website: www.julietmcmullin.com Comic of Juliet's visit to the 2018 Asian American History graduate seminar at UCLA by Angel's Talitha Trazo. Q. Your research agenda summed up in one sentence: My research agenda is designed to examine the production of inequality [...]

Amanda Lucia Second Project Fellow, Center for Ideas and Society Department: Religious Studies Rank: Associate Professor Years at UCR: 7 Favorite Thing: Building my secret garden. Top texts for a desert island: Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction; Max Weber, Economy and Society (Vols. I & II); Giles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus [Chosen not on the pretense of presenting myself as smart, but rather because these are texts that I can read and reread, again and again, and still always seem to find something new and interesting bit to “think with.” [...]

Matthew Mahutga Co-Lead, 2018-19 Political Economy Seminars and the Globalization, Populism and the International Order Symposium Department: Sociology Rank: Associate Professor Years at UCR: 10+ Favorite thing: My favorite past-time is just about anything on the Central California coast. Fishing, hiking, food and wine are right at the top! Text I would take to a desert island: How to Survive a Desert Island by Tim O'Shei (Capstone Press, 2019). Hiking with friend Mark Martinez at Montaña de Oro State Park. [...]

Anthony Jerry Convener, Blackness Unbound, Faculty Commons Project Anthony's Stats Department: Anthropology Rank: Assistant Professor Years at UCR: 3 Project website: culturalmediaarchive.org         Q.  Summarize your research in one sentence:  My work seeks to highlight the ways that blackness has historically been conceived of as the means of production and the ways that this conception continues to inform the possibilities of experiences and expressions of contemporary blackness in Mexico and the U.S. Southwest. Q. How does your work add to current conversations in the [...]

Farah Godrej Senior Fellow, Center for Ideas and Society, 2017-2020 Department: Political Science Rank: Associate Professor Years at UCR: 12 Favorite places:  Walking the Huntington Gardens in Pasadena, or strolling the coast along the Pacific Ocean.  Staring at nature, whether in the form of plants, trees, fauna, or water, is a crucially rejuvenating practice. Top three texts I would take to a desert island: * A “wisdom” text:  The Bhagavad-Gita, the self-inquiry manual I turn to again and again. * An “intellectual” text: Karl Marx’s [...]

Stephen Sohn Senior Fellow, Center for Ideas and Society, 2017-2020 Mellon Term Professor 2019-2020 Stephen's Stats: Department: English Rank: Professor Years at UCR: 5 years Favorite sport: Tennis Current favorite television show: Killing Eve and The Good Place (tie) Preferred desserts: Anything custard based! The text I cannot do without: Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life Stephen's favorite local dessert, Vanilla Custard Bun from Uncle Chuang's Bakery. Q. Summarize your research in one sentence... I am interested in thinking deeply about literature and culture in all of [...]