As we distance ourselves to help stop the spread of a deadly virus, a new department is being built within Michigan State University’s College of Arts & Letters — the Department of African American and African Studies (AAAS). At the helm of this momentous effort are Ruth Nicole Brown, Inaugural Chair of AAAS, and Tamura Lomax, Founding Associate Professor. “We…
Emery Petchauer, Associate Professor in the Department of English, will virtually present a keynote panel, “Breaking and Making: Hip-Hop Aesthetics Across Place, Sound, and the Moving Image,” along with graduate students Jared Millburn, Vanessa Aguilar, and Stephany Bravo as part of the Sound Studies, Writing, and Rhetoric Conference.
Now more than ever, our need to provide students with the human and professional virtues required to live meaningful lives through deep and genuine relations is critical in the world today. Our virtual conversation with Dean Christopher P. Long (College of Arts & Letters), Dr. Arthur Versluis (Department Chair of Religious Studies and Chair of the Foglio Chair in Spirituality…
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded Michigan State University a $325,000 grant to support the first phase of the “Emergency Response Archive of Puerto Rico,” a digital open-access repository of Puerto Rican artifacts of disasters pertaining to Hurricane María (2017), the Guayanilla earthquakes (2020), and COVID-19 (2020). The project involves collaboration between MSU, the University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras,…
Michigan State University has taken over hosting and development of Humanities Commons, an online network for people working in the humanities. The site was launched by the Modern Language Association (MLA) in December 2016 and has become a key piece of online scholarly infrastructure with nearly 25,000 users. The transfer to MSU provides an institutional home that gives the platform…
My family and I were attending a virtual Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) service when our son texted us that Ruth Bader Ginsburg — or RBG, as he and all his young generation knew her — had just passed away. Minutes later, the rabbi, clearly shaken by the news, gave a heartfelt tribute to Ginsburg. My heart dropped at hearing…
While earning undergraduate degrees in French and Philosophy, Paula Winke was inspired to blend her interests in language learning, research, and social justice. Today, she’s an applied linguist, researching the ethics and effectiveness of foreign language testing as Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages and Director of the Second Language Studies Program Winke works in foreign language…
This year's College of Arts & Letters' Artist-in-Residence of Critical Race Studies is Young Joon Kwak, a multidisciplinary artist who works primarily through sculpture, performance, video, and collaboration. The Critical Race Studies Artist-in-Residence program, offered by the Department of Art, Art History, and Design (AAHD), will give Kwak the opportunity to produce a substantial public project that engages in critical approaches to diversity and inclusion…
This semester, the College of Arts & Letters is pleased to welcome 22 new faculty and staff members. Please join us in welcoming the following people to Michigan State University and the College of Arts & Letters: Ruth Nicole Brown Ruth Nicole Brown is the Inaugural Chairperson for the Department of African American and African Studies (AAAS). Previously, she worked as…
The College of Arts & Letters wishes to recognize our long-serving faculty members who have retired this year and offer our thanks and appreciation for their many years of service. Those faculty members include Susan Gass, Mutsuko Endo Hudson, William Penn, John R. Rauk, and Edward Watts. Together they have served the College and University a combined total of more than 155…