At times the amount of ideas, and possible outcomes for this project have felt overwhelming. But it has started to feel more manageable as I transfer my ideas into paper, shape those ideas into a more concrete project, and draft the script of  my video essay.  I have felt inspired by the presentations of theContinue reading “Is that someone me?”

As a writer and scholar from Venezuela, I identify myself from the fringes of my language. For this reason, writing in Spanish while living in the United States is my way of giving order and meaning to the feeling of being adrift I experienced when I decided to leave my country. In her book “LivingContinue reading “The House They Left”

“A couple months ago, I was at a family gathering, this was with in-laws. And after a little dinner or whatever, they brought out this board game called ‘Therapy.’ Which is very frightening with your in-laws and extended family or whatever. But it turned out to be a pretty lame game. It didn’t probe anyContinue reading “A Forgotten Chicago Poet and her Popgun Sonatas”

The University of Iowa Graduate College and the UI Libraries Digital Scholarship & Publishing Studio are excited to announce that 13 graduate students have been selected for the 2021 Studio Summer Fellowship program. These individuals will soon take part in an 8-week course that provides mentored digital scholarship experience, as well as training in skillsContinue reading “Meet the Studio’s 2021 Summer Fellows”

First and foremost – I cannot begin to discuss this project without thanking Nikki White MLIS and Stephanie Blalock PhD MLIS for their incredible mentorship, support and instruction over this past summer semester. The genesis for this project began with the title – The Midwest is Easy to See. I was inspired by the WhitneyContinue reading “Until Next Time”

My summer project as part of the Digital Studio aimed to compile and present information about the US immigration and visa system that will serve as a a backdrop to my research on how immigrants understand and navigate the restrictions attached to visa statuses. You can read more about this in my previous post. AsContinue reading “Learning About Communicating Complex Information Visually”

At the summer’s start, my scholarship was, as was everyone’s, utterly unmoored by the abrupt and brutal rise of the pandemic. In addition to the impact Covid-19 had on the day-to-day logistics of my project—conducting and recording interviews, chief among them—it also profoundly impacted the scope and scale of what I was seeking in theContinue reading “Connected by sound in isolation”

When Peabody Coal “hauled” the small town of Paradise, Kentucky away, I hadn’t been born yet. But my life and the lives of all Kentuckians are often landmarked by loss–in many cases, before we’re born. The folks that come into being in coal country come into this world with a very specific deficit, are unwittingContinue reading “Archiving Paradise”

At the beginning of my Digital Studio Summer Fellowship, I felt a bit lost. My dissertation—an animal history of Chicago centered on the ways human-animal relationships drove urbanization at the turn of the century—seemed clear enough. Then COVID-19 threw a major pathogenic wrench into my research plans, as I was to have spent the springContinue reading “…Eight Weeks Later…”