Humanities Alliance Teaching Fellows
The following Graduate Teaching Fellows were selected as the inaugural cohort of fellows, and are now in their 2nd Year of the fellowship:
Emily Brooks, History
Emily Brooks is Ph.D. candidate in the History Department at the Graduate Center. She studies the history of nonviolent crime in the United States in the twentieth century, and focuses particularly on the construction and policing of social deviance. Brooks looks at changes in laws and policing practices pertaining to drug and alcohol prohibition and sexual activities to consider the origins of these changes and how they reflected and reinforced inequalities delineated along lines of race, class, gender, and perceived ability. Currently, Brooks is exploring the policing of women for sexual crimes in New York City during and after the mobilization for WWII, a moment of unsettled gender norms and heightened concern about female sexuality. Through this research she hopes to examine both policing practices of the New York City Police Department, and how these practices were used to construct gender difference.
Deshonay Dozier, Environmental Psychology
Deshonay Dozier is a doctoral candidate in Environmental Psychology at the CUNY Graduate Center. Broadly, her research engages the cultural critique and alternative development practices of people of color in the Los Angeles region. Dozier’s dissertation research maps the contested racialized relations of property and policing between elites and the homeless in Skid Row. Her research has been supported by the International Center for Nonviolent Conflict, Institute for Human Geography, and USC Wallis Annenberg Research Grant. Dozier holds a Bachelor’s in Child and Adolescent Development with a Minor in Sociology from California State University, Northridge and a Master’s in Psychology from CUNY. She has taught and assisted courses in ethnic studies, psychology, and urban affairs.
Luis Henao Uribe, Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Languages
Luis J. Henao Uribe is a Colombian writer based in New York since 2005. He published the short-stories collection Diarios del limbo in 2006 and he collaborates often with literary magazines Los bárbaros and Vecindad. He is a P.h.D student at The Graduate Center, CUNY in the Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Languages Program and his main research interests are Mexican and Colombian novel of the 20th Century and the representations of violence and literature as part of State building processes.
Anton Kociolek, Cultural Anthropology
Anton Kociolek is a doctoral student in the cultural anthropology program at the Graduate Center. Originally from Chicago, he earned a B.A. in anthropology at Hunter College, CUNY in 2013. His research interests encompass ethnomusicology, historical anthropology, migration/mobilities studies, semiotics, and critical race theory, with a regional focus on Puerto Rico, the wider Caribbean, and Caribbean diasporas in the U.S. His research looks at Puerto Rican musical practices in order to explore questions of race, nationalism, historical consciousness and processes of migration and cultural exchange both past and present. In this, he is informed by and draws on his years of experience as a performing musician and dancer in the Afro-Puerto Rican genres of bomba and plena. His pedagogical concerns include a keen interest in how the study of popular musical practices can help to inform student engagement with broader questions of culture and power. He is himself a product of community college, the City Colleges of Chicago, which provided him with the basic competencies required for matriculation to a 4-year institution. These experiences motivate his commitment to the value of urban public higher education.
Jenn Polish, English
Jenn Polish, a writer and educator with a healthy dose of Queens pride, has taught writing at CUNY Queens College and is a Ph.D. student in English at the CUNY Graduate Center. Their classroom and research interests deeply intersect, so they and their students spend a lot of time discussing and writing about the lived realities of critical race and dis/ability theories. They are currently focusing their academic work on the relationship between affective whiteness and dis/ability in composition classrooms. Their debut novel, LUNAV, a YA fantasy, is set for publication with NineStar Press in April 2018.
Rojo Robles Mejías, Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Languages
Rojo Robles is a writer, filmmaker, and educator from Puerto Rico. He recently published the novel Los desajustados and the English version The Maladjusted, and is currently finishing his first feature film The Sound of ILL Days. He is a Ph.D. student at The Graduate Center, CUNY in the Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Languages Program where he focuses on the intersection between literature and cinema in Latin America.
The following doctoral students have been selected as the second cohort of Humanities Alliance Graduate Teaching Fellows:
Jonathan Kwan, Philosophy
Jonathan Kwan is a philosophy Ph.D. candidate at The Graduate Center, CUNY. His main areas of interest include political and social philosophy, the philosophy of art, Chinese philosophy, Buddhist philosophy, and feminist philosophy. Jonathan’s dissertation develops an eco-political and territorial account of the concept of a democratic people in an effort to answer the boundary problem and questions about a people’s legitimacy (how can a people justify the exclusion of outsiders, if at all?). His argument has important consequences for a host of practical issues such as immigration, refugees (including environmental refugees), and the rights of indigenous peoples. In the past, Jonathan has taught at Hunter College and Brooklyn College. He currently serves as a Communication Fellow at the Bernard L. Schwartz Communication Institute at Baruch College.
Kahdeidra Monét Martin, Urban Education
Kahdeidra Monét Martin began her career in youth development as a tutor, youth facilitator, Assistant Director of a Beacon Program, and Afterschool Site Coordinator at community based organizations throughout NYC. A proud product of independent and public schools, she also has been a teacher and administrator at both. Kahdeidra currently is an Adjunct Professor of Developmental English at Passaic County Community College and is pursuing a Ph.D. in Urban Education at The Graduate Center, CUNY. Her research interests include sociolinguistics, contrastive analysis literacy strategies, culturally relevant curricula, participatory action research, decolonization, religion and education, the languaging practices of multilingual African-descended youth, and the places where dialects intersect. Outside of teaching and researching, Kahdeidra is the publisher and editor at Dimonet Connect Publishing, where she has authored two bilingual children’s books, I Love Myself, Do You? and Saturday is My Favorite Day, and one collection of poetry, Saltwater Rivers. As Kahdeidra explains, “My writing is divinely inspired, ancestrally edifying, and culturally conscious.” She holds a B.A. in African & African American Studies from Stanford University and an M.S.Ed. in Teaching Urban Adolescents with Disabilities from Long Island University, Brooklyn Campus.
Chaya R. Nove, Linguistics
Chaya R. Nove is a Ph.D. student in the linguistics program at The Graduate Center, CUNY. Her research focuses on variation and change in contemporary Hasidic Yiddish, an understudied Yiddish variety that is also her native language. Chaya’s academic journey began at SUNY Rockland Community College, where she was inspired by the pedagogical practices of her professors. After earning her Master’s in applied linguistics from Teachers College Columbia University, she returned to Rockland Community College as an adjunct instructor in the speech department. Although her primary focus is currently on linguistic research, she remains passionate about public higher education. Chaya teaches linguistics courses as a teaching fellow at Hunter College.
Hansol Oh, Theatre
Hansol Oh is a doctoral student in Theatre and Performance at The Graduate Center, CUNY. She joined the program after completing her bachelor’s degree in English and French from Korea University. Her research interests include: theories of national identity and citizenship, post World War I US American theatre, theatres of hyphenated identities, and inter-Asian theatre and performance exchange.
Micheal Angelo Rumore, English
Micheal Angelo Rumore is a writer, educator, and semi-retired musician, as well as a doctoral student in English at The Graduate Center, CUNY. He works broadly in the field of postcolonial studies and his current project focuses on writing that employs the Indian Ocean as a site for narrating globalization and the emergence of modern racialization. His writing has appeared in venues such as Social Text Online, Studies in the Fantastic, and Guernica. In addition, he has taught courses in literature and composition at Lehman College and Queens College, CUNY.
Jacob Sachs-Mishalanie, Music
Originally from Utica, NY, Jacob Sachs-Mishalanie is a Brooklyn-based composer, songwriter, electronic musician, drummer, and teacher. His recent research and musical projects use ideas about recording and sampling, recursion, and generative composition. This work has taken shape in many forms, including concert pieces juxtaposing acoustic and artificial sounds, a stop motion music video released by Newlywed Records, minimal pop songs, and performance pieces like “Counterpoint for Two Isolated Drumsets” and “Piece for Eight Microcassette Recorders.” Jacob is currently a PhD candidate in music composition at The Graduate Center, CUNY, where he studies with Jason Eckardt and Jeff Nichols. He received a BM in composition from SUNY Purchase in 2013, where he studied with Suzanne Farrin, Du Yun, and Huang Ruo. As a teaching fellow, he teaches courses in music technology and music theory at Brooklyn College.
Patryk Tomaszewski, Art History
Patryk Tomaszewski is a Ph.D. student in Art History at The Graduate Center, CUNY. His research focuses on twentieth-century art, with a specific interest in modern art from Eastern and Central Europe. Currently, Patryk is working on a project that explores ways in which Polish artists negotiated their national identity through artist-run collaborations and exhibitions in the immediate aftermath of World War II. In addition to teaching art history at Borough of Manhattan Community College, he has also completed internship programs at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Born and raised in Warsaw, Poland, Patryk holds a B.A. with Honors in Art History and German from Fordham University and an M.A. in History of Art and Archaeology from The Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.
Inés Vañó García, Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Languages
Inés Vañó García is a Ph.D. student of Hispanic Linguistics at The Graduate Center, CUNY. She came to the U.S. after receiving her “Licenciatura” from the University of Alicante (Spain) with a Fulbright Spanish Teaching Assistantship at Agnes Scott College (GA), and decided to continue her studies in the United States. Her research focuses on the institutionalization of the Spanish language in the U.S. at the beginning of the 20th century. She is interested in language ideologies and the political history of the Spanish language. She has teaching experience in Spain and in the U.S. In addition, Inés is also completing the Interactive Technology and Pedagogy Certificate in order to be up to date on technology-based educational resources. Currently, she is teaching at Brooklyn College and Lehman College (heritage speakers).
Alison Walls, Theatre
Alison Walls is Ph.D. student in the Theatre program at The Graduate Center, CUNY. An actor and director from Wellington, New Zealand, she also holds an MFA in Theatre from Sarah Lawrence College and an MA in French Literature from Victoria University of Wellington. Her publications include The Sentiment of Spending (Peter Lang, 2008), a new-historicist discussion of consumerism and the nineteenth century French novel, and articles on the department store novels of Zola and Rachilde, French language in Henry V, and vampire imagery in Showboat. Alison’s current research explores the intertwined relationship of archetype, stereotype, and iconic performers in popular US culture from the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century. Alison has recently joined the Upstart Creatures, a non-profit theatre company creating “metaphysical feasts”—offering free play readings and gourmet food to the community.
