Wyoming Institute for Humanities Research Faculty Fellows Selected at UW

The inaugural cohort of University of Wyoming faculty fellows for the Wyoming Institute for Humanities Research’s (WIHR) new Humanities Research Group program has been selected.

Eight fellows who proposed research projects anchored in the humanities were selected from a competitive field, says WIHR Director Scott Henkel.

“Their projects are richly interdisciplinary and reflect a broad range of cutting-edge research on humanistic, civic, social and technological issues, including how the use of 2.5-D representations can bring art and artifacts to a larger public, and how styles of photography influenced the importance of the American West in the popular imagination,” Henkel says. “Research these fellows are performing also seeks to know more about the relation among immigration, economic engagement, language skills and personal networks; the relation among society, commerce and technology; and the nature of ‘fake news’ in the 18th century.”

Henkel adds that he is impressed by the vision and depth of all the fellows’ research projects that were proposed.

“The fellows will help us to see more clearly about our world and the issues we face,” he adds. “Our histories, our art and literature, our Western landscapes all come alive in these projects, and I am excited for these fellows to engage the public with their fascinating work.”

The spring fellows and the titles of their projects are:

-- Fredrick Douglass Dixon, African American and Diaspora Studies, “The Origin and Rise of Chicago’s Black Community College Movement.”

-- Mike Edson, English, “British Satire and the Secret History of Error.”

-- Chad Hutchens, UW Libraries, “Using Photogrammetry and Reflectance Transformation Imagery to Document and Preserve Petroglyphs from Site 48BH92.”

-- David Kruger, UW Libraries, “William ‘Mil’ Batten: The Impact of an Innovator on American Commerce and Society.”

-- Joy Landeira, Modern and Classical Languages, “Synesthetic Gaze, Tessellating Triangles, and Triangulated Desire in Ventura Pons’ ‘Food of Love’ and David Leavitt’s ‘The Page Turner.’”

-- Neely Mahapatra, Social Work, “South Asian Young Adults in the U.S. and Intimate Partner Violence.”

-- Melissa Morris, History and American Studies, “Cultivating Colonies: Tobacco and the Upstart Empires, 1580-1660.”

-- Rachel Sailor, Visual and Literary Arts, “Photographic Pictorialism as Regional Production in the American West: 1900-1950.”

For more information about the WIHR, visit www.uwyo.edu/wihr/index.html.