Blog
January 12, 2021
To briefly introduce myself, my name is Ben Naismith, and I am a fourth-year PhD student in the Department of Linguistics at Pitt. I am somewhat atypical for my program in that I am a mature student returning to school after nearly 20 years as a professional in the field of teaching English as a for...
January 6, 2021
As a Humanities Engage Collections-Based Curriculum Development Grant recipient and 7th-year doctoral student in the History of Art and Architecture department, I worked with Professor Jennifer Josten (HAA) to develop a ne...
December 15, 2020
In my previous blog post, I introduced my collaboration with Professor Barbara McCloskey, whose course Foundations of Art History is being taught digitally for the first ti...
December 15, 2020
“I have worked on several research projects on theater concerning HIV/AIDS. When it comes to theater concerning HIV/AIDS, the pieces that are shown in the historical record overwhelmingly deal with the perspective of gay white men with AIDS, most among them being upper-middle class or wealthy...
November 3, 2020
Amidst so much turbulence, I’ve been grateful to be developing a course that considers the intersection of science and democracy, and that centers the arts’ and humanities’ role in responding to uncertainty, injustice, and oppression. This work feels especially personal under the current circumstanc...
November 3, 2020
Elizabeth Pitts, assistant professor of English, and I discussed the course she’s working on this summer, “Science, Humanities, and Public Engagement.” The course will be offered in conjunction with the exhibit she...
October 26, 2020
In my last blog post, I introduced the pedagogical project that Chris Nygren and I underto...
October 26, 2020
This module focused on the Image of the Black in Western Art, a collection of nearly 25,000 images that is considered to be the authoritative reference on representations of Blackness and Black people in Western Art from antiquity to the...
October 14, 2020
As I contemplated how I wanted to enter my 2nd year as an English Writing and Composition PhD student, I prioritized securing an internship with an organization aligned with my research interests, gaining experience with qualitative research methods, and polishing my proposal. I am interested in ins...
October 14, 2020
My name is Mathew Tembo, a fifth-year graduate student pursuing a PhD in Ethnomusicology in the Music Department at the University of Pittsburgh. I will be defending my prospectus in October 2020, after which the next step in my career will be to conduct fieldwork research for my dissertation, on wh...
October 14, 2020
As a fourth year PhD student in Theatre and Performance Studies, it was a privilege to be able to reconnect with the Walpole Children’s Theatre over this past summer for my remote immersive fellowship with Humanities Engage. I’m...
October 14, 2020
My name is Brenda Sólkez, and I am a full-time doctoral student in the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literatures who will be entering my fourth year in the Fall of 2020. I have completed the comprehensive exams required for my degree, and at present, I am starting to write my dissertation pro...
October 14, 2020
My name is Sean Nonnenmacher, and I am a fifth-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Linguistics. At the beginning of the Humanities Engage Summer Immersive, I undertook a project concerned primarily with storytelling for the Phoenix chapter of...
October 14, 2020
My name is Patoimbasba Nikiema. I am a fifth-year graduate student completing a PhD in French and Francophone Studies in the Department of French and Italian and a doctoral certificate in Gender, Sexuality, and Women Studies. My research focuses on the ways in which 20th-21st transnational writers f...
October 14, 2020
This summer was a period of massive learning and growth for me, as an art historian and as a graduate student. I was in a unique position when the possibility of this summer immersive first came up: I had just completed a year-long post-baccalaureate fellowship at Pitt in the Department of History o...