Employing & Amplifying Rhizomes

¡ ANNOUNCING THE EAR FELLOWS !

Co-project directors, Karen Mary Davalos (U Minnesota) and Constance Cortez (UT Rio Grande Valley), are thrilled to announce our Exploring and Amplifying Rhizomes (EAR) Fellows. Funded by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), the seven-month fellowship fosters an intellectual Latinx DH community. The fellows will explore the forthcoming digital tool, Mexican American Art Since 1848, to produce new work that supports their career goals.  We also provide mentorship to these emerging Latinx DH scholars. Reflecting our commitment to interdisciplinarity, the EAR Fellows constitute a diverse cohort of scholars and digital humanists of art, history and culture: 

2021-2022 cohort

Gabriella Alderete-Cruz, MS and MA, Information Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies, The University of Texas at Austin.

• To amplify our work among a national audience, Gab submitted a blog post, titled "Rhizomes: A Mexican American Art Digital Initiative" to the National Humanities Alliance, a nationwide coalition of organizations advocating for the humanities on campuses, in communities, and on Capitol Hill. Gab was recently hired as a Circulation Specialist at University of Texas at Austin Libraries.

Kevin Wilfredo Cruz Amaya, PhD Candidate, César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies, University of California, Los Angeles.

• To amplify Chicana/o/x art histories and new methodologies using MAAS1848, in March 2022, Kevin will submit a paper, tentatively titled “Posthumous Voices: Rethinking the Artist Statement and Primary Documents in Chicanx Art,” to the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Toward Equity in Publishing program. 

Sonja Elena Gandert, Ph.D. Candidate, Art History, The Graduate Center, City University of New York.

• To amplify MAAS1848, Sonja Gandert created an activity for college-level art history students to mitigate limitations in conventional methodologies. Below check out the slide presentation, "Politics of Collective Knowledge Production in Art Historical Pedagogy."

Audrey Maier, Ph.D., Public History, University of California, Riverside.

• To explore and amplify the portal, Dr. Maier completed, a digital learning activity for elementary students, called Portaits In the Grove, found here at this link: https://express.adobe.com/page/K4Vj5mlJS5dOW/

Alberto Eduardo Morales, Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Chicano/Latino Studies and the Program for Medical Education for the Latino Community (PRIME-LC), School of Medicine, University of California, Irvine.

• Dr. Morales has developed a lesson plan to engage Chicano/Latino Studies students with the MAAS1848 portal and the digital humanities. Below check out the modified lesson plan on leitmotif. It includes a link to the flipbook Dr. Morales created for his lesson plan. He is currently developing this lesson plan for publication in a pedagogy journal. Additionally, Dr. Morales plans further to survey the work of Chicano/Latino artists and write a research article exploring the intersections of ethnic studies, multispecies perspectives, and Chicano/Latino visual arts.

Pau Nava, Ph.D. Candidate, American Culture, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

• To explore and amplify the portal, Pau Nava researches Chicago and LGBTQ+ artists. They present completed findings at the American Studies Association annual conference, Nov. 2022.

Gabriela Rodriguez-Gomez, Ph.D. Candidate, César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies, University of California, Los Angeles.

• To amplify her research using MAAS1848, Gabriela presented an abbreviated version of "The Future of Digital Data Banking of Chicana/o/x Art: Employing the MAAS 1848 Search Engine, Amplifying Chicana Artists and their Portable Murals in California" at the Annual Meeting of the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies, April 2022.

The EAR Fellowship will be administered by the Department of Chicano and Latino Studies at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities in collaboration with the School of Art, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

See the Call for Proposals