In 2019, I wrote: I like to think of Iowa City as a place of passage, as the place that temporarily housed Tennessee Williams, Raymond Carver, Sandra Cisneros, and Kurt Vonnegut. It is the place where, when you walk along Clinton Street, you can see the window of the room where Williams wrote part ofContinue reading “Iowa City, a haven for Spanish creative writing”

Summer Reflection Video Reflection here, with video of site-in-progress: youtu.be/sYAvsXHwtg8 There is a definite difference between the project that I had at the beginning of this summer and the way that my project has shaped itself. I say “shaped itself” because as I have found, over and over again, research has a habit of veeringContinue reading “Following and Expanding My Research”

Over 40 million adults each year in the U.S. contend with mental health issues, many of whom do not receive quality treatment (NAMI 2018; NIMH 2015). These individuals are often subjected to stigmatization: the social process within social relationships involving the devaluing of someone through ‘conferring labels and stereotyping’ (Pescosolido and Martin 2015). While stigmaContinue reading “Visualizing Public Perceptions of Mental Health Stereotypes”

I have been working on an accessible version of my dissertation research on Anishinaabe Two-Spirit history. I’ve spent the last year learning and expanding my skills with audio editing and podcast hosting as well as managing a website, so I did not realize how steep the learning curve for setting up another podcast would be.Continue reading “Looking for Two-Spirit people in Colonizer Records”

In the year 925, a new governor of Egypt imposed taxes that previously did not affect the Christian clergy of monasteries. The head of a monastery known as Dayr al-Suryan (pictured below), or the Monastery of the Syrians, then went on a journey to Baghdad to attempt to appeal and remove the tax burden fromContinue reading “From Baghdad to Britain: Mapping an Ancient Book Trade”

I have been working on a short documentary film-essay that explores China’s independent queer cinema and its production context during the past two decades. Focusing on gender, sexuality, and politics, my project addresses multiple related topics. For example, I am identifying a set of common features that may be said to characterize this queer cinema.Continue reading “What They May Project”

In the 1969 MGM film, The Trouble with Girls, a fedora-clad Elvis Presley steps off of a train in 1920s Iowa. As the manager of a touring chautauqua program, Elvis’s character is tasked with maintaining the show’s ongoing commercial viability while also wooing a love interest played by Marlyn Mason. The premise and setting mayContinue reading “Mapping Forgotten Routes”

Blind accumulation of material is far easier than selection, and the roadmap is subject to change—these have been my first lessons in developing an online exhibit on “Dispatches from the Cockney School: The Romantics for Our Time.” During the latter half of June, I waded through the Special Collections’ digitized Leigh Hunt collection, trying toContinue reading “Reading Between the Lines”

As part of my MFA thesis project I have been working on a short story collection that portrays the daily life in coffee plantations in Pluma Hidalgo, Oaxaca, México. Given the intensity of the emotional connection I feel to this area, not only because it is my great source of inspiration, I started asking certainContinue reading “The historical journey and the journey of the story”