Randy Lewis, professor and chair of American Studies Department, shares how East Texas roots and New Jersey upbringing led to BA then PhD degrees at UT Austin where, as scholar and creator, he’s been innovating and expanding multiple fields of inquiry, shedding new light on film, music, and urban studies as well as cultural histories of the Americas.
Into the COLAverse
Into the COLAverse – Episode 18: Ashanté Reese
Ashanté Reese, recently promoted to associate professor in the African and African Diaspora Studies Department, shares her journey from growing up in East Texas to Trinity University (BA), American University (PhD) to her innovative scholarly interventions in critical food and food justice studies, Black studies, and Black geographies. Along the way we learn of the significant work done for food sovereignty in Black communities across the country.
Into the COLAverse – Episode 17: Scott Graham
Scott Graham, professor in the Department of Rhetoric & Writing, shares his journey from philosophy to rhetoric, bioscience, health practice, and AI. Along the way we learn about the importance of new models for health care practice and delivery (Tweetorials included) as well as the pros and cons of AI systems in our everyday lives.
Into the COLAverse – Episode 16: Samantha Pickette
Samantha Pickette, professor in Jewish Studies and Assistant Director to the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies, shares how an early fascination with TV and literature her to become a scholar of representations of Jewishness, especially Jewish femininity in TV. Along the way, we learn about how today’s non-legacy TV increasingly represents the complexity of Jewishness as intersectional (race, gender, sexualities) identities.
Into the COLAverse – Episode 15: Hervé Picherit
Hervé Picherit, professor in the Department of French & Italian, shares his journey from growing up in a Francophone family in Wyoming to writing, researching, and teaching French literature and film. He shares wonderful new insights into well-known French authors such as Marcel Proust and Louis-Ferdinand Céline as well as lesser knowns from WWII and those writing sci-fi like Henri Barbot.
Into the COLA-verse: Office Hours Session I: Has Academia Ruined Literary Criticism?
Join UT Profs Frederick Luis Aldama (English), Domino Perez (English), and Steven Mintz (History) as they discuss and deliberate the current state of literary studies and the humanities generally within and outside the university.
Into the COLAverse – Episode 14: Adela Pineda
Adela Pineda is an award-winning scholar and Lozano Long Endowed Professor in Latin American Literary and Cultural Studies. In this episode, Frederick talks with Adela about her origin story and what events led her to her field. They discuss visual technologies, literature, film, and the Mexican Revolution.
Into the COLAverse – Episode 13: Lars Hinrichs
Lars Hinrichs, professor in the department of English, invites us on a journey from the University of Freiburg to UT Austin and how language evolves (especially varieties of English) from within and shaped by different communities.
Into the COLAverse – Episode 12: Jossiana Arroyo-Martínez
Jossianna Arroyo-Martínez, professor in the departments of Spanish & Portuguese and African and African Diaspora Studies, takes us on a journey deep into how Latin American and Hispanophone Caribbean cultural traditions at once work within and against colonial legacies and its destructive race, sexuality, and gender stereotypes that continue to operate today in social media and big televisual events like the Superbowl.
Into the COLAverse – Episode 11: Paola Bonifazio
Paola Bonifazio, professor in the department of French and Italian, discusses how the Italian film industry helped promote the modernization of Italy in and through its active shaping of identity and behavior of Italian people. She also shares insight into the huge popularity of photoromance magazines (graphic storytelling that uses photographs instead of drawings) in Italy, digging into how they were used to promote political, religious, and social agendas in the making of Italian culture and society.