Contributed by Charles R. Venator-Santiago. As some of you may know, El Instituto has been asked to join in the creation of a new interdisciplinary department that seeks to combine all the Non-Departmental Units, including the American Studies Program, the Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative, the Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program, the Africana […]

Contributed by Charles R. Venator-Santiago. Charles R. Venator-Santiago received a $210,000 grant from the Connecticut General Assembly to continue working on the Puerto Rican Studies Initiative during the 2023-2024 academic year. The Puerto Rican Studies Initiative for Community Engagement and Public Policy (PRSI) is a research initiative seeking to document and support Puerto Ricans’ vital economic, intellectual, […]

We look forward to collaborating with Professor H. Kenny Nienhusser, this year’s faculty director for La comunidad intelectual (LCI). LCI is excited to welcome approximately 22 first year and 15 continuing students to its vibrant learning community. The learning community has a leadership team composed of faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students. This year, the […]

Contributed by Charles R. Venator-Santiago. Congratulations to Katerina Gonzalez Seligmann on her 2023-24 academic year Humanities Institute fellowship! Katerina, an Associate Professor of Spanish Studies and past director of El Instituto (2022-2023), will bring a project entitled “Aimé Césaire and His Cuban Comrades in Art.” Katerina writes that the project “examines the relationships of solidarity and […]

Contributed by Rodolfo Fernandez. In my five years teaching at UConn, I have had the opportunity to teach well over a thousand students.  I have no doubt that it would not be possible to teach so many people without the help of graduate research and teaching assistants.  I know how invaluable the labor and intellectual […]

Contributed by Lorena Solis. A Path to Social Justice I am an assistant professor of industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology at the Department of Psychology and a core faculty member at El Instituto. My research focuses on understanding the manifestation of inequality in organizations and institutions. Specifically, I study inequality within the context of workforce diversity. I […]

Contributed by Katerina Gonzalez Seligmann and Anne Gebelein.  Congratulations to Heidi Pineda, senior in Latino & Latin American Studies, who has won the Outstanding Senior Women Academic Achievement Award. The dean’s office let us know that competition for this honor was exceptionally high, as they received nominations from across all 38 units in the College […]

Contributed by Constance Holden My dissertation examines gender, Blackness, and visual culture in modern Argentina. As my research links popular representations of Blackness to how African-descended women charted their own destinies, I became curious about the specific experiences of African-descended women scholars of Latin America. It was at this juncture that I learned about Black […]

Contributed by Sarah Willen & Heather Wurtz Now is a crucial moment to reflect on our experiences of COVID-19 over the past three years and discuss lessons that we, as a global society, can learn as we strive for a better future. These are central objectives of the Pandemic Journaling Project (PJP) — a combined […]