2023 – 2024 “World-Making/World-Building” Theme: The Rosewood, Florida Massacre of 1922. The Kingdom of Hayti led by Henri Christophe in 1811. FTX. The Human Genome. Mars. The imagined spaces of Wakanda. The sites, locations, real or imagined, extant or existing digitally and online, and otherwise, or as part of the human body provide us with different ways of considering what world-making can mean across a variety of disciplines. The idea of world-making suggests that there are possibilities beyond the worlds we know right now. World-making presents thinking beyond the present to imagine worlds otherwise, worlds that we may not yet have access to, worlds that push past what might be possible. World-making invites creativity, necessitates building, and is inherently capacious. World-making asks us to be expansive in our thinking, building, imagining and theorizing. However, overly expansive utopian thinking has been used to oppressive ends. Proposals connected to any dimension of this broad field of inquiry, including literary, artistic, historical, socio-political, scientific, economic, ecological, media theoretical, philosophical, linguistic, as well as technology-focused perspectives are welcome. Dr. Régine Jean Charles, Director of Africana Studies and Dean’s Professor of Culture and Social Justice, and Professor of Africana Studies and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies will lead the year-long interdisciplinary conversation among fellows about their work.
Convened by: Régine Michelle Jean-Charles
Director of Africana Studies,
Dean’s Professor of Culture and Social Justice, and Professor of Africana Studies and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies
College of Social Sciences and Humanities
Layla D. Brown
“Making Life Delicious: Building a Pan-African Feminist World One Country at a Time”
Assistant Professor, Cultural Anthropology & Africana Studies
College of Social Sciences and Humanities
Patrice Collins
“Reimagining “The Visit” for Children with Incarcerated Parents”
Assistant Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice and Cultures, Societies and Global Studies
College of Social Sciences and Humanities
Jonathan Kahn
“The Uses of Diversity: Managing Race and Representation in Law”
Professor of Law and Biology,
School of Law & College of Science
Denise Kohr
“The Invisible Hand: A History of Asian Americans and the Animation Industry”
Associate Director, Asian Studies
Associate Professor of Asian American Studies and Visual Studies
College of Social Sciences and Humanities
Rachel Rodgers
“Building online and embodied spaces that support body liberation and neutrality”
Associate Professor, Department of Applied Psychology,
Bouve College of Health Sciences
College of Social Sciences and Humanities
Sarah Riccardi-Swartz
“Trad Futurity and the Digital Politics of Reactive World-Building”
Assistant Professor, Religion and Anthropology
College of Social Sciences and Humanities
Pierre-Valery Tchetgen
“Drumball: Re-coding Drum Language”
Assistant Professor, Joint appointment in Music/Art and Design
College of Arts, Media, and Design
Jeffrey Lamson – Graduate Fellow
“Engines of Authority: Patrol Cars as Modern Policing in the Urban United States and the World, 1930-1970”
P.h.D Candidate
Department of World History
College of Social Sciences and Humanities
Vivek Mishra– Graduate Fellow
“‘Republic of Affluents: Elite Informals and the Cultural Production of Property in Delhi”
P.h.D Candidate
Department of Public Policy and Urban Affairs
College of Social Sciences and Humanities
Shavaun Sutton – Graduate Fellow
“I’m Building Me a Home”: World-making in Black Staten Island”
P.h.D Candidate
Department of Sociology
College of Social Sciences and Humanities
