Born and raised in Iran, Shirin Abedinirad’s first art piece she ever created was an illustration of her hometown of Tabriz. Quickly mastering the mediums of pencil and paint, her parents encouraged her to pursue her passion and took her to local parks where she painted and entered her work into painting competitions. "I always got first place and my parents would…
A Digital Humanities Seminar class at Michigan State University has partnered with the Monuments Men and Women Foundation (MMWF) to raise awareness of the women who bravely fought to rescue and return art and other cultural treasures stolen by the Nazis during World War II. This semester-long collaboration resulted in the class, taught by Kristen Mapes, Assistant Director of Digital…
Elizabeth Mittman, Associate Professor of German in the Department of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures at Michigan State University, is the 2023 recipient of the MSU Award for Outstanding Service to Education Abroad, which recognizes faculty and staff who give their time, energy, and creativity to the development and implementation of education abroad programs that support MSU's commitment to providing students with high-quality international education opportunities.…
An equity-based art exhibition featuring more than 200 pieces of work from all around the world, exploring the use of creativity to cope with the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, is opening this week at various Lansing, Michigan, locations and was three years in the making by a team led by Nancy DeJoy, Associate Professor in Michigan State University’s Department of Writing,…
Nowruz is the Iranian New Year celebrated by many ethnicities around the world, with origins in ancient Persian culture. It marks the beginning of spring and includes rich traditions that symbolize renewal and hope for the new year. Parisa Ghaderi, Assistant Professor in the Department of Art, Art History, and Design in the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan…
To help alleviate the food insecurity crisis in a northern Tanzania community, Jonathan Choti, Assistant Professor of African Languages and Cultures in the Department of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures at Michigan State University, co-created a project to do just that. The Improving Food Security in Naitolia Village of Northern Tanzania project led by Choti received a $9,950 Network for Global Civic Engagement (NGCE) grant to support…
Each summer, for the past 50 years, Michigan State University students have made a small city in Europe’s Rhine Valley their home. They travel to Mayen, Germany, for five weeks to study the German language while immersing themselves in the local culture through one of the longest-running study abroad programs offered by MSU. Over its half-century history, the German Language…
The Department of English at Michigan State University is home to a myriad of talented faculty members actively engaged in research and creative activity with several of these scholars and artists recently earning awards and professional recognition for the books they have written. These celebrated publications examine topics like linguistic justice in English education, queer literature and theory, color in…
Most people can recognize what words are real and which ones aren’t in the languages they know. However, sometimes a nonsense word might sneak through, especially when the word sounds and looks a lot like a legitimate one. Karthik Durvasula, Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures at Michigan State University, is delving further into “wordlikeness judgments”…
A collaborative project focusing on “Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality in Africa: the History and Current Status of LGBTQ+ in Kenya,” led by College of Arts & Letters faculty Jonathan Choti and Danny Mendez, will bring two guest speakers from Kenya to Michigan State University this spring to share their knowledge, experiences, approaches, and ideas in implementing intersectionality and inclusion in curriculum design and pedagogical practices. The two…