Meet the NHC Fellows - National Humanities Center

Current Fellows

The Center annually welcomes up to forty scholars from all fields of the humanities. Individually, the Fellows pursue their own research and writing. Together, they create a stimulating intellectual community.

The National Humanities Center appointed 33 Fellows for the 2022–23 academic year. Chosen from nearly 600 applicants, they represent humanistic scholarship in African American studies; East Asian studies; education studies; environmental studies; gender and sexuality studies; history; history of art and architecture; Indigenous studies; languages and literature; Latinx studies; Middle East studies; music history and musicology; philosophy; religious studies; and Slavic studies. Each Fellow will work on an individual research project and will have the opportunity to share ideas in seminars, lectures, and conferences at the Center.

Project disciplines and home institutions are noted for each Fellow.

Naomi André, 2022–23

Music History and Musicology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Writing Opera, Singing Blackness in the United States

David Brakke, 2022–23

Religious Studies, The Ohio State University

A Religion of the Books: The New Testament and Other Early Christian Scriptural Practices

Kiu-wai Chu, 2022–23

Environmental Humanities, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Chinese Eco-Images in The Planetary Age: The Multispecies World of Humans, Animals, and Plants

Emmanuel David, 2022–23

Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of Colorado Boulder

Trans-American Orientalism: The Asia-Pacific Encounters of Transgender Pioneer Christine Jorgensen, 1961–1969

Irving Goh, 2022–23

Languages and Literature, National University of Singapore

Living on after Failure

Erdağ M. Göknar, 2007–08; 2022–23

Middle East Studies, Duke University

Legal and Affective Archives of Atrocity: Allied Occupied Istanbul (1918–23) and the Armenian Genocide

Rowena Xiaoqing He, 2022–23

Interdisciplinary Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

One Generation, Two Loyalties?: Evening Chats in Hong Kong

Gregg A. Hecimovich, 2015–16; 2022–23

African American Studies, Furman University

The Columbia Seven: The Life and Times of the Zealy Daguerreotypes

Karima K. Jeffrey-Legette, 2022–23

African American Studies, Hampton University

Black Girls Write the Future: A Scholarly Investigation of Speculative Fiction by or about Women and Girls of African-Descent

Chin Jou, 2022–23

History, The University of Sydney

Captive Consumers: Prison Food in the Era of Mass Incarceration

Blair L. M. Kelley, 2022–23

History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Black Folk: The Promise of the Black Working Class

Martha M. F. Kelly, 2022–23

Slavic Studies, University of Missouri

How to Be a Russian Icon: The Post-Soviet Public Life of Poet Olga Sedakova

Thomas M. Lekan, 2009–10; 2010–11; 2022–23

Environmental History, University of South Carolina

“Conservation by Slaughter”: Wildlife Utilization and the African Origins of Sustainable Development, 1959–1980

Mariska Leunissen, 2022–23

Philosophy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Facts, Evidence, and Observation: Aristotle’s Natural Scientific Study of Women and Motherhood

Brian Lewis, 2022–23

History, McGill University

Greek to the Soul: George Ives and Homosexuality from Wilde to Wolfenden

Elena Machado Sáez, 2022–23

Latinx Studies, Bucknell University

Staging Activism in US Latinx Theater

Patricia A. Matthew, 2022–23

Languages and Literature, Montclair State University

Gender, Sugar, and the Afterlives of Abolition

Wamuwi Mbao, 2022–23

Languages and Literature (Cultural Studies), Stellenbosch University

Representing Discontent: South Africa in Words and on Screen

Andrew McClellan, 2022–23

History of Art and Architecture, Tufts University

Rivals on the Fenway: Isabella Stewart Gardner, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Destiny of the American Art Museum

W. Jason Miller, 2022–23

Languages and Literature, North Carolina State University

Backlash Blues: Nina Simone and Langston Hughes

Kristi A. Olson, 2022–23

Philosophy, Bowdoin College

Violinists, Spelunkers, and Trolleys: How Philosophers Think about Abortion

Shailaja Paik, 2022–23

History, University of Cincinnati

Becoming “Vulgar”: Caste Domination and Normative Sexuality in Modern India

Héctor Pérez-Brignoli, 2022–23

History, Universidad de Costa Rica

Rebellious People: Patterns of Social Revolt and Collective Violence in Central America, 1920–1954

Keith Richotte, 2022–23

Indigenous Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The Worst Trickster Story Ever Told: Native America, Plenary Power, and the U.S. Constitution

Catherine Roach, 2022–23

History of Art and Architecture, Virginia Commonwealth University

The Shadow Museum: A History of the British Institution, 1805–1867

Jontyle Theresa Robinson, 2022–23

History of Art and Architecture, Tuskegee University

Bearing Witness: Contemporary Works by African American Women Artists, 1996 and Revelations from Bearing Witness, 2026

Umrao Sethi, 2022–23

Philosophy, Brandeis University

Sensibilia: An Account of Sensory Perception and its Objects

Geng Song, 2022–23

East Asian Studies, The University of Hong Kong

The Matrilocal Husband: Chinese-style Neoliberal Masculinities in the Digital Era

Molly Todd, 2022–23

History, Montana State University

Pictures of Conscience: Central American Refugees and International Human Rights Campaigns, 1979–2019

Cedric R. Tolliver, 2022–23

Languages and Literature, University of Oklahoma

Spook(ed): African American Literature, National Security, and the Fictions of Statecraft

Nancy Tomes, 1999–2000; 2022–23

History, Stony Brook University

A History of the Modern Infodemic

Tiffany Willoughby-Herard, 2022–23

African American Studies, University of California, Irvine

‘I Meant for You to be Free’: Winnie Mandela’s Love Letter to and Pedagogies for Young South Africans, the Post-1994 Generation

Amy Louise Wood, 2022–23

History, Illinois State University

Sympathy for the Devil: The Criminal in the American Imagination, 1870–1940

Robert Mbe Akoko, 2021–22; 2022–23

Cultural Anthropology, Duke University

New Religious Movements: A Comparative Study of Pentecostalism in Cameroon and the United States of America

Raphael Dalleo, 2022–23

Literature, Bucknell University

Caribbean Literature and Human Rights Discourse

Peter Fisher Epstein, 2022–23

Philosophy, Brandeis University

A Unified Approach to Spatial Cognition

Patrick Greaney, 2022–23

German Studies, University of Colorado Boulder

Designing a New Germany: Braun, 1950s Culture, and the Creation of Postfascist Lifestyles

Eric Legette, 2022–23

Independent Scholar

Reclaiming the Classroom-Post Pandemic/Educational Leadership

Julie-Françoise Tolliver, 2022–23

Comparative Literature, University of Oklahoma

Burning History: Fire Cultures in North American Literature and Cinema

Current Fellows by the Numbers

Disciplines 2022-23

Ranks 2022-23