Art Markman, Associate Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and the Annabel Irion Worsham Centennial Professor of Psychology and Marketing, shares his journey first finding his way to a cognitive science degree at Brown, a PhD at University of Illinois, the publishing of numerous books and innovating new cross-disciplinary learning spaces within and outside the classroom. Along the way, he helps answer big questions like what value does a college degree have? How can we innovate in higher education?
Language
Into the COLAverse – Episode 28: Faegheh Shirazi
Faegheh Shirazi, professor in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, shares her journey from Iran to the US and the path that led to her research and teaching on the policing, marketing, and creative consumption of clothing, textiles, and food within and beyond Muslim societies.
Into the COLAverse – Episode 27: Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez
Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, director of the Center for Mexican American Studies, professor in the School of Journalism, and founder of Voces Oral History Center, shares her journey from growing up in Devine, Texas, to earning journalism BA and MA degrees at UT Austin, as well as a PhD from UNC, Chapel Hill. These and years of work as a journalist inform her inexhaustible drive to make heard the voices and stories of Latina/o/x agents of change.
Into the COLAverse – Episode 26: Jo Hsu
Jo Hsu, professor in the Rhetoric and Writing, shares their journey from a love of storytelling and fiction reading as a child to an MFA in writing and PhD in Rhetoric at Penn State. Along the way we learn of the power of story to open us to new ways of seeing and experiencing the world—to “constellating homes”—and to the transformative possibilities of language.
Into the COLAverse – Episode 25: Rebecca Falkoff
Rebecca Falkoff, professor in the Department of French and Italian, shares her journey from an undergrad studying Faust, literary theory, and languages at UPenn to a PhD in Italian Studies at UC Berkeley. Along the way we learn of her rich and expansive research and writing on hoarding—from 19th century Parisian flea markets to Sherlock Holmes to today’s reality TV shows—as well as insights into learning languages, her own literary translation work, and Italian authors such as Dante, Carlo Emilio Gadda, and Elena Ferrante.
Into the COLAverse – Episode 24: Judith Coffin
Judith Coffin, professor in the Department of History, shares her journey to French cultural history, especially focused on issues of gender, labor, and material practices of consumption and production. Along the way we learn about the impact of the invention of the sewing machine, the work and reception of Simone de Beauvoir, and so much more!
Into the COLAverse – Episode 23: Anthony K. Webster
Anthony K. Webster, professor in the Department of Anthropology, shares his journey early interests in representation, language, and literature to Navajo poetics. Along the way we learn about linguistic anthropology, processes of attunement, lingual life histories, intergenerational poetic practices, hip hop, and healing of word-arts.
Into the COLAverse – Episode 22: Annette Rodríguez
Annette M. Rodríguez, professor in the Department of History, shares her journey from childhood road trips in the Southwest to degrees at the University of New Mexico then Brown. Along the way, we learn of her innovative scholarship, collaborations, and data mapping projects that enrich understanding of historical continuities and inversions that create racialized constructions of belonging and unbelonging in the U.S.
Into the COLAverse – Episode 19: Randy Lewis
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 – 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.