Working groups and faculty-led projects
The project will explore the concept of style, together with related concepts, by comparing the roles they have played across a wide range of disciplines, from the arts and humanities all the way to the sciences and mathematics. The concept of style has a long history, especially in the visual arts, literature, and music. Under the name of “reasoning style” it has also played a significant role in the history and philosophy of science, as well as in the history and philosophy of mathematics. In those areas too, interest in the concept has increased noticeably over the last few years, both nationally and internationally. What is shared across all these disciplines, despite obvious differences in subject matters, basic methods, and goals, is the sense of an existing plurality of styles, which differ from each other in terms of varying ways of seeing and shaping their respective objects. Understood as such, the concept of style is closely related to a number of other concepts, including: episteme, discourse, structure, paradigm, methodology, way of making sense, form of explanation, and kind of knowledge.
Faculty Coordinators
Erich Reck, Philosophy
Johannes Endres, Art History and Comparative Literature
Over the past decade the Global 19th Century Workshop has achieved international standing for collaborative, interdisciplinary research on all aspects of the material, cultural, intellectual, and scientific intersections of practices and formations of knowledge in the long 19th century. Transgressing disciplinary and national boundaries while making connections to 21st century intellectual and political endeavors, we revitalize humanistic studies through conversation and publication, strengthening UCR’s international reputation in this area.
The 2022-23 working group will explore novel formats for sharing and revising path-breaking interdisciplinary research for publication. Turning inward to the UCR campus, the group will host three live roundtable events featuring UCR faculty and graduate students who study the nineteenth century; these cross-departmental collaborative events will bring scholars together to assess the state of the field, its new directions, and its importance for the future.
Addressing a collective need to reconnect following two years of Covid-19 isolation, the theme for 2022-2023 is “Coming Together: The Local in the Global.” The project solicit the work of UCR-based scholars who approach this theme in interdisciplinary and unconventional ways, in particular through migration, human rights, race, sexuality, and emotion.
Global 19th Century Workshop: “Global Circulations”
The UCR Global 19th Century Workshop’s program, supported by CIS since 2015, will host an intensive works-in-progress day, to take place in Fall 2023, convening noted scholars and graduate students to share work related to “Global Circulations.” This broad theme constellates work on the emergence of modern communication and transportation networks; the flows of capital, commodities, microbes, and species that they facilitated; the mass mobility of immigrants and other travelers; and the spread of ideas through vast new media apparatuses. A cohort of graduate students, “Global 19th-Century Graduate Student Fellows,” will have the opportunity to present dissertation works in progress, and read and comment on pre-publication faculty research.
Faculty Coordinators
Heidi Brevik-Zender – French and Comparative Literature
Jonathan Eacott – History
Fatima Quraishi – Art History
Susan Zieger – English
Ten Years Later: What Have We Learned? It has been a decade since the 2007‒2009 global financial crisis. The collapse of American investment bank Lehman Brothers sparked an economic downturn which was felt throughout the entire world, particularly across Europe. On the heels of the deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression and “secular stagnation,” we are now seeing a backlash against globalization in the form of rising economic protectionism and political nationalism. Populist, anti-globalization, and anti-immigration parties in both Europe and the United States are riding a wave of voter frustration with the market-driven global economic architecture, and are calling for an end to trade and financial globalization, to international migration and to the very institutions that provided the legal and administrative foundations of the post-war order, such as the World Trade Organization. The crisis also broke a sense of trust, not just in financial institutions and the government that oversaw them, but in the very idea of experts and expertise. The past ten years have seen an open revolt against the intellectual elites and scientific experts. The dilemmas of and struggles over the governance and reform of this increasingly fragile, crisis-ridden order will define the social, economic and political terrain of the twenty-first century. Our goal is to bridge the collective expertise at the University of California, Riverside with that at other institutions to bear on these issues.
Faculty Coordinator: Jana Grittersova (Political Science)
More details at ucrpoliticaleconomy.ucr.edu
Building Research Excellence in Political Economy at UCR
An outgrowth of the successful UCR Polical Economy Seminars, this project will develop collaborations among UCR students and faculty engaged in theoretically informed empirical research on political economy. Through a series of workshops, students and faculty will (1) present ongoing research in a formal context designed to elicit interdisciplinary feedback; (2) address common problems from specific disciplinary perspectives as a vehicle for developing interdisciplinary solutions to such problems, including collaborative research projects across departments; and (3) promote the development of excellence in independent graduate student research by providing a venue for feedback and exposure to world-class state of the art research in political economy.
Faculty Coordinator: Matthew Mahutga (Sociology)
Funded by the UC Humanities Consortium, Summer “Pop-Up” awards support short-term collaborations between faculty from UCR and other UC campuses on a humanities-related topic of common interest over the course the summer.
2021 Projects:
Bodies and Infrastructures in Contemporary Japanese Fiction
Anne McNight, UCR, Comparative Literature & Languages (Convener)
Margherita Long, UCI, East Asian Studies
Daniel Cuong O’Neill, East Asian Languages and Cultures
Jon L. Pitt, UCI, Japanese Environmental Studies
Summer Pop-up + Humanistic Bioarchaeology
Sara K. Becker, UCR, Anthropology (Convener)
Elizabeth S. Berger, UCR, Anthropology
Beth Koontz Scaffidi, UC Merced, Anthropology and Heritage Studies
Christina Torres-Rouff, UC Merced, Anthropology and Heritage Studies
Conferences sponsored by the Center for Ideas and Society
Programs
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Community Conversations
The popular Disciplines in Dialogue program pairs UCR faculty from different academic disciplines for a conversation on topics of interest to a public audience, primarily comprising Osher members and attendees at UCR Palm Desert Center events. The series reaches approximately 500 community members each year. The 2020-21 series will be hosted via Zoom webinar on Thursdays at 6 pm.
2021 Series: Pivotal Moment(s): “You should have been there!”
What recent or historical event or series of connected events would you claim has been crucially important and in what way? What moment or series of moments was world changing in ways well-known or overlooked? If you had a time machine and could travel anywhere in time, what moments would you not want to miss?
January 7: Pivotal Moments in Science Fiction:
- Jonathan Alexander (English and Informatics and Associate Dean, Division of Undergraduate Education UC, Irvine)
- Sherryl Vint (English and Media and Cultural Studies UCR)
February 4: Pivotal Moments in African Politics:
- Ademide Adelusi-Adeluyi (History, UCR)
- Kim Dionne (Political Science, UCR)
March 4: Pivotal Moments in Latin American Art:
- Savannah Esquivel (Art History, UCR)
- Aleca Le Blanc (Art History, UCR)
March 23: Pivotal Moments in Environmental History:
- Philipp Lehmann (History, UCR)
- Jade Sasser (Gender and Sexuality Studies, UCR)
Academic Book Club awards cover the purchase of books for virtual groups of faculty and/or graduate students who agree to meet up online to discuss sections of the book at least 5 times over the coming quarter. Though we ask that at least half the participants be CHASS faculty and/or graduate students, conveners and other club members may be from any school or college at UCR.
Club leaders convene meetings via Zoom or other online meeting room services. Selected titles should have the potential to engage multiple perspectives, disciplines and methods in critical inquiry. Inclusive, cross-disciplinary groups are encouraged. At the end of the quarter, groups will be asked to provide feedback on their experiences.
Apply Now!
2021 Summer Book Clubs:
White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America (Flip Tanedo, Kalina Michalska, Annika Speer, facilitators)
We Do This ‘Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice (Keith Miayke, facilitator)
We Do This ‘Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice (Dana Simmons, facilitator)
Python for Linguists (Covadonga Lamar Prieto, facilitator)
Song of Achilles (Annie Ditta, facilitator)
Under Representation (Nancy Carranza, facilitator
2020-21 Book Clubs:
Spring Quarter Titles
New Age of Empire: How Racism and Colonialism Still Rule the World (Kim Dionne, facilitator)
New Black Sociologists: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (Victoria Reyes, facilitator)
Coddling of the American Mind (Annie Ditta, facilitator)
Winter Quarter Titles
Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling and the Making of Cultures (Liz Davis, facilitator)
Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*** / My Own Words (Annie Ditta, facilitator)
Culturally Responsive Teaching (Annie Ditta, facilitator)
Localism and the Ancient Greek City (John Haberstroh, facilitator)
Ministry of Utmost Happiness (Ruhi Kahn, facilitator)
The Lonely Letters (Melissa Wilcox, facilitator)
Engaging Contradictions: Theory, Politics and Methods of Activist Scholarship (Grecia Perez and Thelma Patnett, facilitators)
The Problem with Everything (Flip Tanedo, facilitator)
Conflict is Not Abuse (Dana Simmons and Setsu Shigematsu, facilitators)
Fall Quarter Titles
Marking Time: Art in the Age of Incarceration / What’s the Use / Ezili’s Mirrors (Crystal Baik, facilitator)
The Alchemist / The Great Influenza (Annie Ditta, facilitator)
Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Annie Ditta, facilitator)
Dark Matter (Sneha George and Andy Smith, facilitators)
White Reconstruction: Domestic Warfare and the Logics of Genocide (Lawrence Lan and Grecia Perez, facilitators)
Research and Publication
Research Writing Groups encourage sustained writing practices, productivity and networking through regularly scheduled writing sessions.
Writing Group awards provide $25 gift cards to participants who attend a majority of scheduled meetings. Groups of 4-8 participants agree to meet at least five times over the quarter. Though we ask that at least half the participants be CHASS faculty and/or graduate students, conveners and other group members may be from any school or college at UCR. Group leaders convene meetings via Zoom or other online meeting room services. At the end of the quarter, groups will be asked to provide feedback on their experiences.
Summer 2021 Groups
Keith Miyake, convener (5 participants)
Rengin Firat, convener (6 participants)
stefan torralba, convener, group #1 (6 participants)
stefan torralba, convener, group #2 (8 participants)
Judit Palencia Gutiérrez, convener (6 participants)
Annie Ditta, convener (5 participants)
Elizabeth Kopacz, convener (4 participants)
Sophia Levine, convener (7 participants)
Magnolia Yang Sao Yia, convener, group #1 (7 participants)
Magnolia Yang Sao Yia, convener, group #2 (8 participants)
Savannah Esquivel and Yong Cho, conveners (8 participants)
Julio Orellana, convener (5 participants)
Jose Reynoso, convener (8 participants)
2020-21 Writing Groups
Spring Quarter
Jose Reynoso. convener (7 participants)
Magnolia Yang Sao Yia, convener (10 participants)
Heejoo Park, convener (4 participants)
Xiomara Forbez, convener (13 participants)
Yong Cho and Savannah Esquivel, conveners (8 participants)
Lindsay Rapport, convener (8 participants)
Cathy Thomas, convener (4 participants)
Winter Quarter
Magnolia Yang Sao Yia, convener, group #1 (10 participants)
Magnolia Yang Sao Yia, convener, group #2 (8 participants)
Magnolia Yang Sao Yia, convener, group #3 (5 participants)
Jennifer Vanegas Rocha, convener (4 participants)
Yong Cho and Savannah Esquivel, conveners (8 participants)
Amy Spencer, convener (6 participants)
Cathy Thomas, convener, group #1 (4 participants)
Cathy Thomas, convener, group #2 (5 participants)
Xiomara Forbez, convener (5 participants)
Annie Ditta, convener (5 participants)
Elizabeth Kopacz, convener (4 participants)
Grecia Perez, convener (4 participants)
Fall Quarter
Liz Berger, convener (5 participants)
Yong Cho and Savannah Esquivel, conveners (9 participants)
Kim Dionne, convener (10 participants)
Annie Ditta, convener (5 participants)
Marziyeh Kameli, convener (4 participants)
Lawrence Lan, convener (5 participants)
Jessica Masini, convener (9 participants)
Magnolia Yang Sao Yia, convener (12 participants)
Cathy Thomas, convener (6 participants)
Magnolia Yang Sao Yia, convener, group #2 (10 participants)
Project Development Workshop Awards provide funds for a CHASS faculty member to host scholars or subject matter experts for an open discussion of the faculty member’s book manuscript, film, play or substantial creative project with the aim of moving it towards completion and submission (to a press, film festival, theatre, gallery show etc.) Hosted online or in person, workshops can be private or open to pre-registered campus participants. Through an annual call, the Center provides small grants, matching funds and administrative support.
2023-24 Participants
2020-21 Participants
Farah Godrej (Political Science) “Prison Yoga and Meditation: South Asian Text and Practice in the US Carceral System”
Anthony Jerry (Anthropology) “Chasing Blackness: Racial Economies and the Production of Citizenship in Mexico”
Richard Rodriguez (Media & Cultural Studies) “Undocumented Desires: Fantasies of Latino Male Sexuality”
Michele Salzman (History) “The ‘Falls’ of Rome: Transformations of the City in Late Antiquity (270-603 CE)”
Dana Simmons (History) “Hungry, Thinking with Animals” (Funded by a a grant from the University of California Office of the President Multi-campus Research Programs and Initiative Funding through the UC Humanities Research Institute.)
Victoria Reyes (Sociology) Academic Outsider
Annika Speer (Theatre, Film & Digital Production) Missing: A Musical Dramedy
Bronwyn Leebaw (Political Science) After Slumber: Transformative Justice, Memories of Resistance, and the Lessons of the Past
Helpful Resources
Faculty Book Workshop Guide by CISSR
Workshop Planning Guide by Matthew Salganick
How to Plan a Book Manuscript Workshop by Karen Tani
The “Hot off the Presses” series features presentations by CHASS faculty on their recently published books. While their book is still “hot off the press”, the authors give an informal talk about the publication’s themes and expected impact, and/or their experience of writing it. Each talk is followed by a question and answer session with participants. The Center adds these new titles to its growing collection of CHASS publications. Eligible titles may be nominated for the annual Emory Elliott Awards.
Book talks in 2022-23 will be hosted online.
2019-20 Events
- Victoria Reyes – Global Borderlands
- Crystal Mun-hye Baik – Reencounters: On the Korean War and Diasporic Memory Critique
- Robb Hernández – Archiving an Epidemic: Art, AIDS, and the Queer Chicanx Avant-Garde
- Deborah Wong – Louder and Faster: Pain, Joy, and the Body Politic in Asian American Taiko
- Randy Head: The Making of Modern Archives
- Michael Alexander: Making Peace with the Universe
- Amanda Lucia: White Utopias
- Ariel Dinar: The Economics of Water Resources: A Comprehensive Approach
- Andy Smith: Otherwise Worlds: Against Settler Colonialism and Anti-Blackness
- Toby Miller: Persistence of Violence and How Green is Your Smartphone?
- David Lloyd: Xicancuicatl: Collected Poems by Alfred Arteaga
- Chris Chase-Dunn: Global Struggles and Social Change: From Prehistory to World Revolution in the Twenty-First Century
- Bella Merlin: Shakespeare & Company: When Action is Eloquence
- Begonia Echeverria: “Witches” and Wily Women: Saving Noka through Basque folklore and song”
- Edward Chang: Pachappa Camp: The First Koreatown in the United States
Made possible by gifts from Emory’s family and friends, the Emory Elliott Book Award honors the book published by a CHASS faculty member during the previous academic year that, in the judgment of the selection committee, best exemplifies the values that characterized Professor Elliott and his contributions to life and letters.
Among these many contributions are the capacity to recognize complexity together with the passion to clarify, the ability to contribute to a conversation rather than to summarize agreements already established, and the intent to further a tradition of creative and scholarly munificence.
Award Winners
- 2022: Allison Hedge Coke (Creative Writing) – Look at This Blue
Sherryl Vint (English) – Biopolitical Futures in Twenty-First-Century Speculative Fiction
- 2021: Anusha Kedhar (Dance) – Flexible Bodies: British South Asian Dancers in an Age of Neoliberalism
Brandon Robinson (Gender and Sexuality Studies) – Coming Out to the Streets
- 2020: Victoria Reyes (Sociology) – Global Borderlands: Fantasy, Violence and Empire in Subic Bay, Philippines
- 2019: Jade Sasser (Gender & Sexuality Studies) – On Infertile Ground: Population Control and Women’s Rights in the Era of Climate Change
Steven Brint (Sociology) – Two Cheers for Higher Education: Why American Universities Are Stronger Than Ever―and How to Meet the Challenges They Face - 2018: Sang-Hee Lee (Anthropology) – Close Encounters with Humankind: A Paleoanthropologist Investigates Our Evolving Species
- 2017: Charmaine Craig (Creative Writing) – Miss Burma
- 2016: Anthea Kraut (Dance) – Choreographing Copyright: Race Gender, and Intellectual Property Rights in American Dance
- 2015: Conrad Rudolph (Art History) – The Mystic Ark: Hugh of Saint Victor, Art, and Thought in the Twelfth Century
- 2014: Amanda J. Lucia (Religious Studies) – Reflections of Amma: Devotees in a Global Embrace
- 2013: Maudemarie Clark (Philosophy) – The Soul of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil
Perry Link (Comparative Literature) – An Anatomy of Chinese: Rhythm, Metaphor, Politics - 2012: Priya Srinivasan (Dance) – Sweating Saris: Indian Dance as Transnational Labor
- 2011: Michelle Raheja (English) – Reservation Reelism: Redfacing, Visual Sovereignty, and Representations of Native Americans in Film
Student Research
Graduate student fellows in this program receive support for summer writing projects and the opportunity to connect with other UC graduate fellows in virtual meetings and workshops. The fellowships are funded through a collaborative grant from the UC Humanities Consortium.
2021 Fellows
Stephanie DeMora, Politcal Science, Who Supports Her? The Conditions of Gender Specific Voting
Grecia Perez, Anthropology
Evelyn Pruneda, Sociology, Navigating Multidimensional Borderlands: How Spatial Politics and Inequalities Shape the Working Conditions and Lived Experiences of Women Farmworkers in Rural California
2022 Fellows
Jeff Chu, History, Thracians among Others: Encounters with Greeks, Macedonians, and the Near East
Xiomara Forbez, Dance, Prima, ‘Olapa, Bachatera – Name Me Dancer: Expanding the Category of Dancer through Ballet, Hula, and Bachata
Deborah Nelson, Philosophy, The Reasoning of Economically-Disadvantaged People
Nattapol Wisuttipat, Music, Spicy: The (Un)making of Queer Presence in Thai Classical Music
2023 Fellows
Nicole Furtado, English, Galaxies like Islands, Islands like Galaxies: Envisioning Futurity in Seascape Technologies
Rotem Herrmann, Philosophy, Body and Memory: An Inquiry into Skill
The Humanities Graduate Student Research Grants assist CHASS graduate students involved in original research or creative projects in the humanities. Awarded funds are primarily intended for research proposals related to dissertation or MFA work, though other projects are considered as funds permit.
The award process is competitive. Applications are collected each fall and announced the following spring. Projects are judged according to intellectual merit, faculty support and justification for the proposal as it relates to completion of the dissertation or MFA project.
The Humanities GSR Awards are sponsored by UCR Graduate Division, the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, and the Center for Ideas and Society.
We congratulate the following award winners!
| 2022-23 Winners | 2021-22 Winners |
|---|---|
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Lily Allen (History of Art)
Jose Alvarez (Anthropology)
Tiffany Bragg (History)
Kimberly Diaz (Religious Studies)
Fernando David Márquez Duarte (Pol Science)
Nicole Furtado (English)
Chi Yen Ha (Anthropology)
Koby Hansen (Hispanic Studies)
Kate Huang (Comp Literature)
Minhye Joo (Pol Science)
Ashley McNelis (History of Art)
Allison Moon (CWPA) Motherland
Othandwayo Mgqoboka (Anthropology)
Johanna Najera (Anthropology)
Sophia Rodriguez (Anthropology)
Brianna Simmons (Anthropology)
Chandler Spahr (Psychology)
Chun Chia Tia (Music)
Fulya Felicity Turkman (Pol Science)
Miriam Villazón Valbuena (Hispanic Studies)
Zhiyi Wang (Anthropology)
Rachel Wedemeyer (Anthropology)
Laysi Da Silva Zacarias (Anthropology)
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Alvaro Gonzalez Alba (Hispanic Studies)
Zander Allport (English)
Homer Arnold (Art History)
Molly Bond (Art History)
Aaron Brown (English)
Elena Cardona (Hispanic Studies)
Alejandro Echeverria (Anthropology)
Jonathan Extract (Anthropology)
Sahar Foruzan (Anthropology)
Jemuel Jr Garcia (Dance)
Pedro Garcia Lopez de la Osa (Music)
Tessa Harmo (Religious Studies)
Brianna Herndon (Anthropology)
Mark Inchoco (Music)
Marziyeh Kameli (Comparative Literature)
Qian Liu (Comparative Literature)
Cinthya Martinez, Ethnic Studies
Clare O’Brien (Comparative Literature)
Thelma Patnett (Anthropology)
Steven Quach (Religious Studies)
Christopher Queen, English
Richard Rush (History)
Brianna Simmons (Anthropology)
Vlad Sirbu (Comparative Literature)
Anna Emilova Sivova (Music)
Hannah Snavely (Music)
Kelsey Sullivan (Anthropology)
Chun Chia Tai (Music)
Ryohei Takatsuchi (Anthropology)
Genesis Torres-Morales (Anthropology)
Levin Welch (Sociology)
Nattapol Wisuttipat (Music)
Sang Keun Yoo (English)
Gnei Soraya Zarook (English)
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Made possible by her children, one of whom is the third director of CIS, this fund provides support for graduate students seeking travel and dissertation support from the Center for Ideas and Society within the majors of History, Art History, and Political Science in the hope that it will help them realize their ambitions and make a contribution through their research to the world of ideas.
Jean Rowe Warnke raised five children in Washington, D.C. during the Post-WWII era and instilled in them, by word and steely example, a commitment to truth, progressive values and generosity of spirit, along with an aversion to anything that smacked of self-promotion, resting on one’s laurels or conceit. She pushed them, and herself, to make a difference, and she committed her formidable energies to bettering the lives of those less fortunate.
The 2019-20 award recipient was Camilla Querin (History of Art) for the project: Dialectics of Malandragem, When Arts Transform the Outcast into a Hero.
The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship (MMUF) is a two-year program that provides financial support, research mentorship, and assistance with graduate school applications. The Mellon Mays program at UC Riverside is administered by the Center for Ideas and Society and is funded by an annual grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The program is managed by the Center Director (PI) and the CHASS Dean (Co-PI.) Visit UCR’s MMUF website for more information on student eligibility and benefits: mellonmays.ucr.edu
Faculty Program Coordinator: Covadonga Lamar Prieto (Associate Professor, Hispanic Studies)
Administrative Program Coordinator: Katharine Henshaw (Associate Director, Center for Ideas and Society