Faculty Fellows
We are pleased to announce our 2024-2025 cohort of CAH Faculty Fellows.
Justin Clardy (Philosophy), "Civic Indifference and Black Suffering"
Prof. Clardy's (he/they) project "Civic Indifference and Black Suffering" analyzes Black suffering, social exclusion, and socio-ontological dispossession and it seeks to draw out the parallels between Afro-pessimism and an interpretive philosophical framework called "civic indifference." In developing this framework, the project takes a cue from Saidiya Hartman who situates the Emancipation from slavery as a "non-event" and Fred Moten who asks whether the socio-ontological category of "humanity" permits us to understand the social life (and social death) of those marked "Black." By redirecting our attention away from de jure social and political changes and toward our socio-ontological orientation of indifference toward Black suffering, the project helps us better understand the peculiar nature of Black suffering and what Black folks mean when they say "the more things change, the more they stay the same." Click here to learn more about Prof. Clardy and their research program.
Heather Clydesdale (Art and Art History), “Building Public Character in Taiwan”
Architecture appears as form and mass but creates meaning as space and spirit. Professor Clydesdale’s project focuses on buildings and environments designed by Taiwanese architects since the turn of the twenty-first century. She is investigating design processes, aesthetic principles, and how people activate sites as they move through and use them. From conception and construction to the manifestation of places in a community, the defining feature of new Taiwanese architecture is a spirit of “public character” (gonggong xing 公共性). Taiwan’s tangled cultural legacies, staunch commitment to sustainability, and a political system that promotes public engagement are foundational to the emergence of these works that, although avant-garde, are not altars to the egos of architects. Instead, from nature centers and theaters, bus depots, and high-speed rail stations, to schools and cemeteries, Taiwan shows how architecture, sustainability, and democracy can preserve local heritage, connect people to natural environments, and promote civic engagement. This, in turn, suggests that contemporary Taiwanese architecture can offer lessons for architects, city planners, officials, and the public in other places in the world.
Jess Eastburn (Art and Art History), “Wayfinding”
Eastburn’s research focus in the 2024-25 academic year will be an investigation of the idea of home: how we define where home is, from the idea of hometown and the places we know from our earlier lives to the homes that we find and forge for ourselves in adulthood. Through art exhibitions in Oregon and California, and opportunities to engage the community through art
making and public art opportunities during the year, Eastburn’s work will focus on how they navigate the concept of home by exploring place how it defines and shapes us, and how human connections are forged through art.
Miah Jeffra (English), “Summer of the Locusts”
The Summer of the Locusts continues Jeffra's work addressing social inequity and examining whiteness as a settler-colonialist construct in its contemporary articulations (family values, pop culture, politics). This project concerns the friendship of two pre-teen boys growing up in a trailer park in rural Appalachia, inspired by a combination of ethnographic fieldwork and interviews that Jeffra began in the summer of 2022. The story is set in a town where an inmate from the local penitentiary escapes and is purported to be living in the woods beyond the trailer park. This incident catalyzes a series of events that center the two prepubescent protagonists within a field of scrutiny, requiring them to negotiate their friendship, their identity, and how they want to be seen within their community. The reportage connects social inequities to toxic masculinity, domestic violence, and poverty by examining how young men process and respond to such prevalent influences as they grow up. Jeffra plans to return to Appalachia to complete their fieldwork, which will inform the final choices for the novel's structure, and commence the prose writing.
An exciting part of these projects is how they will engage with students, faculty, and community partners. Stay tuned for more details about these collaborations.
Past Faculty Fellows
2023-24 Faculty Fellows
Jimia Boutouba (Modern Languages and Literatures) “ War, Race and Sexual Politics in French Indochina”
Hsin-I Cheng (Communication)“ Bridging the Digital and Physical Spaces: Furthering Black and Asian Solidarity”
Elizabeth Drescher (Religious Studies) “Seeing Spirits of Silicon Valley in Place: Mural Art as Memory, Identity, Resistance, Solidarity, and Transformation in San José, CA”
Christina Zanfagna (Music) “Black-Italian Crossroads: Racial Tensions, Social Solidarities, and Sonic Affinities”
2022-23 Faculty Fellows
Sonia Gomez, History: "A Gendered Diaspora: Intimacy and Empire in the Making of Japanese America, 1908-1952"
Tony Hazard, Ethnic Studies: "Afro-Indigeneity, Family Remembrance, and The Narragansett of Rhode Island"
Amy Lueck, English: "Indigenous Remembrance of the Winchester Mystery House"
Lee Panich, Anthropology: "Insurgent California: Native Resistance and the Collapse of the Missions"
Mukta Sharangpani, Women's and Gender Studies: "Aging Across Borders: Towards an Ethnography of Loss and Hope"
2021-22 Faculty Fellows
Chris Bacon, Environmental Studies and Sciences: “Framing Food Justice: Diverse Perspectives towards Building Back Post-COVID Food Systems with Equity and Resilience.”
Sonia Gomez, History: “A Gendered Diaspora: Intimacy and Empire in the Making of Japanese America, 1908-1952.”
Maggie Levantovskaya, English: “Writing Illness and Disability.”
Juan Velasco, English: “A Film Treatment/Screenplay Based on Salaria Kea’s Biography.”
2020-21 Faculty Fellows
The Center for the Arts and Humanities announces its 2020 Faculty Fellows. This year the Center has encouraged Fellows to explore how they might collaborate on similarly themed projects. More information on those projects and how they will eventually be shared with the compus and community will be forthcoming as circumstances permit. The Fellows will also be working with Student Fellows to be named later.
Michelle Mueller, Religious Studies: Adam the Father, Eve the Mother: The Adam-God Doctrine & 'Heavenly Parents' in Mormonism
Robin Tremblay-McGaw, English (in collaboration with Megan Nicely, Performing Arts, University of San Francisco): The Art of Reflection, Resistance, and Dissensus
Ryan Carrington, Art and Art History: Contradictions-Solo Exhibition at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, 11/28/20-1/10/21
Roya Ebtehaj, Art and Art History: In-between
Allia Ida Griffin, Ethnic Studies: The Afterlife of Loss: On Writing from the Iranian Diaspora
Danielle Morgan, English: 'A Bogeyman's Family': The Black Uncanny in the 21st century
Tricia Creason-Valencia and Emily Reese, Communication: A Short Film: ¡Aguas!
2019-20 Faculty Fellows
Renee Billingslea, Art and Art History: Ten Japanese Concentration Camps.
Katharine Heintz, Communication: Saint Clare School media project
Jackie Hendricks, English, Theresa Conefrey, English, Maura Tarnoff, English,: A Humanities Annotation App
Mathew Kroot: Anthropology, Treasures of the Old Quad: Tangible and intangible heritage in a Santa Clara neighborhood
Kristin Kusanovich, Theater and Dance and Child Studies: Sustainability and Environmental Justice project
Roberto Mata, Religious Studies: Latinx Religious Art & The Degentrification of Aesthetics in San Jose
Danielle Morgan, English: Frank Sinatra Fellow
Nico Opper, Communication and Sonja Mackenzie, Public Health, Gender Justice.
David Popalisky Theater and Dance: Water
Enrique Pulmar, Sociology
Julia A. Scott, Neuroscience: Controlling your reality: Transforming ancient meditative practices into a virtual reality experience
2018 Frank Sinatra Faculty Fellow
Danielle Morgan, Assistant Professor of English
Danielle Morgan specializes in African American literature in the twentieth and twenty-first century. She is particularly interested in the ways that literature, popular culture, and humor shape identity formation. Her writing has been published on Racialicious, in Post-Soul Satire: Black Identity after Civil Rights, Humanities, and is forthcoming in Afterlife in the African Diaspora and Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly. She has recently completed a manuscript entitled Just Kidding: African American Satire, Selfhood, and the 21st Century.
2018 Faculty Fellows
Renee Billingslea, Lecturer, Art and Art History Department
Project: Ten Japanese Internment Camps
This project will create a “comprehensive picture of this part of American and California history, bringing together imagery of the campsites today, historical imagery, and stories of the people who were imprisoned in each camp, demonstrating the depth and magnitude of Order 9066.
Renee Billingslea received her MFA in Photography from San Jose State University and teaches in the Department of Art and Art History at Santa Clara University. Her Nationally known installation, The Fabric of Race: Racial Violence and Lynching was recently on exhibit at the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. Currently, Billingslea is creating a photographic installation, entitled Ten Internment Camps that address the unjust incarceration of Japanese Citizen living in the United States during WWII. The installation will include her imagery of each of the ten Interment Camp sites, as well as historical photographs helping to tell a complete story of this part of American history, and its impact on racism and immigration issues today.
Blake de Maria, Harold and Edythe Toso Professor, Art and Art History Department
Project: The Built Environment: Architectural History in the Digital Age
Utilizing her training as an architectural historian, Blake de Maria plans to develop a technology-based course and digital exhibition entitled "The Built Environment: Architectural History in the Digital Age." The course will focus on the historical development of three categories of public spaces – educational, commercial, and industrial – with a specific emphasis on structures on the Santa Clara campus and in Silicon Valley. Students will create a digital exhibition showcasing architectural developments on campus as well as those built at neighboring institutions, including Apple, Google, and Adobe. The exhibition will be accompanied by a GuidiGo app that will offer additional information concerning the exhibition, as well as materials concerning spaces of architectural interest in Silicon Valley.
Dr. de Maria received her undergraduate degree from UCLA, where she specialized in Islamic Art, and then attended Princeton University where she continued her focus on the early modern Mediterranean. Her publications include the books, Becoming Venetian: Immigrants and the Arts in Early Modern Venice (Yale 2010) and Reflections on Renaissance Venice: Essays in Honor of Patricia Fortini Brown - which was awarded the Gladys Krieble Delmas Award by the Renaissance Society of America as well as essays on The Oracles of Leo the Wise and the material culture of dining in early modern Venice. She is currently completing the manuscript, "Facets of Splendour: Gemstones and Jewellery in the Republic of Venice." In this study, she explores the mining, trade, and use of precious stones in a variety of venues, including the Treasury of San Marco in Venice.
Angela Holzmeister, Lecturer, Classics Department
Project: Interdisciplinary Conversations on Ancient Art in the Modern World
This project involves conversations between academics and local museum curators, disseminated via podcasts. The goal is to explore “the ethics of finding and acquiring objects, the presentation of artifacts, and the history of collections, as well as issues of identity, nationalism, and repatriation”.
Angela Holzmeister is Lecturer in the Classics Department, where she teaches Ancient Greek and Latin at all levels, as well as courses on mythology, friendship, and ethics. Her research focuses on Greek Imperial literature. She is also co-organizer of the upcoming SCU event "The Ethics of Collecting Art" (May 11, 2018), which is supported through a Hackworth Grant.
2017 Faculty Fellows
- Elizabeth Drescher, Religious Studies: Living Religions Collaborative Multimedia Website Development
- Teresia Hinga, Religious Studies: Religion and The Arts in (global) Silicon Valley: Building Resilience and Hope Through (Sacred) Song, Dance and Story Among (The African) Diaspora(s)
- Kristin Kusanovich, Theater and Dance: Art and Democracy
- Amy Lueck, English: Extending Digital Archival Research on our Campus
- Takeshi Moro, Art and Art History: Digital Storytelling through Virtual Reality Video Art