Humanities Connect

Humanities Connect is a group of up to 10 participants, roughly half students and half faculty, who convene across an academic year to study and share their ongoing humanities research related to the year’s theme.

This research might take shape as an essay or thesis, with the group reading a work-in-progress. But participants may also share creative or other-than-written art practices, or even new course design plans. In addition to people in the advanced stages of research, we welcome people taking on a new research trajectory that will not take “completed” form during the program; participants then may ask the group read a few selected texts, or attend an exhibition or performance. Each cohort’s study and schedule is determined by the needs of the group and as often as possible we meet over food. Participants are offered modest material research support. 

All participants present at a public symposium in the spring semester, typically between spring break and the A&S Student Symposium.

The application portal opens in March, coinciding with the Humanities Connect Symposium, with applications due in early June.

The University of Richmond Humanities Center invites UR faculty, staff, students, and community members to apply to Humanities Connect, an interdisciplinary seminar to be held in across the 2023-24 academic year. Humanities Connect participants explore common humanistic interests and pursue intellectual, scholarly, and educational outcomes around the program theme. The word "connect" in the title emphasizes the power of humanistic questions to draw together many perspectives and UR’s commitment to innovative intellectual exchange across disciplinary, faculty-student, and community and university lines.

The 2024-25 program theme is: “How (and why) do we represent nature?” This year’s theme question invites us to consider “representation” in both its political meaning and its aesthetic meaning. “Nature” is represented in paintings, poems, scripture, music, dancing, novels, laws, regulations, equations, activisms, advertising campaigns.

We invite projects that focus on how nature is represented in specific texts and contexts, but also invite comparative projects, or projects that focus on relations (or historical thresholds) between different representations of “nature.” Projects may be located in any historical period or geopolitical context, or they may be explicitly transhistorical. We invite projects that are located in single humanities disciplines or in traditional interdisciplinary formations, as well as work that crosses boundaries between humanities, scientific, and social scientific practices.

Interested participants should email applications to nsnaza@richmond.edu by Monday, June 3.

Application

Name:

Role at UR (e.g., faculty, student, staff):

Primary departments/programs/majors:

Project Name:

Brief Project Description:

If it is not clear in the description, how does your project relate to this year’s theme?:

At what stage is your project (e.g., planning, early drafting, nearing completion)?:

Do you need any resources (books, travel expenses, etc.) to complete your project?

The 2023-24 Humanities Connect Theme is What Forms the Self?

Participants:

Laura Browder (American Studies)
Elena Calvillo (Art and Art History)
Alicia Diaz (Theater and Dance)
Makena Gitobu, ’24  (English/History)
Alexandra Gramuglia, ‘25 (Art History,)
Mimi Hanaoka (Religious Studies)
Gabriel Matthews, ‘24 (IDST: Critical Theory)
Daniel Polonia, ‘26 (Undeclared)
Nathan Snaza (English/Humanities)
Kenedee Westberry, ‘25 (English/Russian Studies)

2022-23 Participants

Alan deClerk , ’25 (IDST: Environmental Humanities)
Ny’Asia Flowers, ‘24 (PPEL)
Josie Holland, ‘23 (Jepson School of Leadership Studies)
Anthony Russell (English/Italian Studies)
Nathan Snaza (English/Humanities)
Douglas Winiarski (Religious Studies)

2021-2022 Participants

Kristin Bezio (Jepson School of Leadership Studies)
Kamene Mang’oka, ’23 (WGSS)
Reide Petty, ’23 (English/History/Russian Studies)
Shruti Sathish, ’23 (Biochemistry & Molecular Biology)
Miquell Shaw, ’22 (Africana Studies)
Julietta Singh, (English/WGSS)
Nathan Snaza (English)
Jillian Yates, ’24 (undeclared)

2020-2021 Participants

Rowan Cai, ’21 (History and American Studies)
Anna Cheng, ’21 (Philosophy)
Olivier Delers (Languages, Literatures, and Cultures)
Conner Evans, ’21 (English and Journalism)
Brooklyn Griffin, ’21 (Russian Studies)
Emma Hoholik, ’21 (Art History and Health Care Studies)
Yvonne Howell (Languages, Literatures, and Cultures)
Miriam Schleifer McCormick (Philosophy)
Nicole Sackley (History and American Studies)
Erika Zimmermann Damer (Classical Studies and WGSS)

2019-2020 Participants

Janette Amaral-Rodriguez (LALIS)
Elizabeth Baughan (Classical Studies)
Maggie Castelli ¿21 (History)
Joanna Hejl ¿20 (American Studies and Political Science)
Erin Holloway Palmer (Independent Editor)
Michelle Kahn (History)
Rob Nelson (Digital Scholarship Lab)
Nicole Sackley (History and American Studies)
Will Wasta Werner ¿20 (Classical Studies and History)
Carson Watlington ¿20 (English and Art)

2018-2019 Participants

Bert Ashe (English)
Karen Sherry (Virginia Museum of History and Culture)
Agnieszka Szyma¿ska (Art History)
Atiya Husain (Sociology)
Ellie Palazzolo ¿19 (History)
Will Reckner (Philosophy)
Nicole Sackley (History and American Studies)
Rania Sweis (Anthropology)
Sydney Watts (History)
Raelyn Williams ¿19 (Art History & English)
Jessica Winkler ¿19 (Global Studies)