CSWS Annual Review

by Lanie Millar, Associate Professor, Department of Romance Languages
In August, 2025, I descended from a tour bus into a misty morning on top of the Serra da Barriga, a mountain in Alagoas, Brazil. I was there as part of a tour of the Quilombo dos Palmares Memorial Park, a national heritage site commemorating the largest known community of fugitives from slavery (quilombos) in the Americas, which flourished throughout the 17th century. Before setting off on the tour, our guide, Mestre Gil, sat us in a circle. “How many of you know the story of Palmares? About Brazil’s quilombos?”

Through a competitive application process, CSWS selected biochemistry major Claire Jones and dance major Michelle Rogers as our 2026 STEAM Fellows. A senior majoring in biochemistry and minoring in bioengineering, Jones conducted summer research for the project “Understanding Female Specific Factors in Osteoarthritis” under the supervision of Associate Professor Nick Willett in the Willett Lab at the Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact. A junior majoring in dance and minoring in chemistry, Rogers conducted summer research for the project, “Partitions for Performance: A Summative Model for Analyzing Gendered Connotations in Dance” under the supervision of Assistant Professor Amy Swanson in the School of Music and Dance.

by Jenée Wilde, Associate Teaching Professor, Department of English
What did students learn in a CSWS Calderwood Seminar last spring focused on domesticity? The experimental course, COLT 399 Extreme Domesticity: The Labor of Care in Literary and Visual Culture, was developed by Dawn Marlan, teaching professor and director of undergraduate studies for comparative literature, as one of our CSWS Calderwood Seminars in Public Writing.

by Jenée Wilde, Associate Teaching Professor, Department of English
In 2025, Hoda Sobhani received a CSWS Graduate Student Research Grant to complete her award-winning animated documentary That Night. The short film takes viewers inside Iran’s notorious Evin Prison for political prisoners from the perspective of Neda, a friend who was imprisoned there for protesting the death of Mahsa Jina Amini in September 2022. Neda was among the thousands of protesters arrested as the Women, Life, Freedom movement erupted across Tehran, resulting in one of Evin’s most congested periods in modern Iranian history. That Night delves into the harrowing experiences of inmates when a major fire broke out in the prison.

reflections by Anu Sugathan, Maia Wellborn, and Nishat Parvez
The Ford Lecture Hall is buzzing as students and faculty chat animatedly, plates of food and drinks in hand. At the front of the high-ceilinged room in the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, guest of honor Dr. Durba Mitra chats amiably with CSWS Director Sangita Gopal. There’s a delay while museum staff work to fix the podium’s microphone, but no one is in a rush. Here in this windowless lecture hall, friends and colleagues catch up, laugh at jokes, and talk excitedly about their latest research. There’s a communal feeling in this space that reflects the focus of tonight’s talk: What if gathering together liberated us?

My thoughts are with Dolly Parton, who has left us to shine in the sweet hereafter. I feel wonder at this woman, who for five decades crafted a unique career as an artist, philanthropist, and businesswoman and who was adored across the ideological silos that seem to ceaselessly divide us. I first encountered her as a young girl in the song “9 to 5” and distinctly remember being mesmerized by the small frame, big hair, and that potent combination of toughness and joy that radiated from her.