This innovative, competitive two-term research fellowship supports Humanities dissertation projects that involve substantial professional development and will likely result in dissertation formats other than the conventional proto-monograph. The Fellowship carries a competitive stipend and a tuition scholarship for the duration of the fellowship as well as professional development funds. For more information, see the immersive dissertation research fellowship flyer (PDF).

To support the argument that writing and art can make possible gender and gender change, rather than simply report it, S. Brook Corfman (English) is studying the practices and products of a group of trans artists. As part of this work, Corfman will continue to collaborate with the Greer Lankton archive at the Mattress Factory Museum and will create significant series of poems exploring Lankton’s work and legacy as part of the dissertation “All Trans People are Artists, All Artists are Poets.”

Through her exploration of poetic and cultural productions in Brazil, Luana Moreira Reis (Hispanic Languages and Literatures) emphasizes a commitment to social justice and collective change in her dissertation, “A poesia é meu quilombo: Black Feminist Poetics of Insurgency.” She will continue to collaborate with the Kilomba Collective and ADDverse+Poesia and to showcase the results of her analysis and critical work through original poetry. In summer 2021, she worked with the Office for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in a Humanities Engage Administrative Micro-internship.

For her dissertation, “Keywords, Practices, and Products of the Twenty-First Century Girl Coder,” Brittney Knotts (English) seeks to historicize and understand the emergence and significance of 21st century “girl coders” locally and nationally. As part of this work, she will extend her partnerships with community sites, such as The Ellis School and Assemble, to do ethnographic work that is useful and legible to them. She was a Humanities Engage 2020-2021 Pitch Your Own Immersive Fellow.

• Dissertating In (and About) a Pandemic
• Experts and PhDs: Reflections as I Leave Pitt

Manuel Robles (History) seeks to illuminate how Mexico went from largely ignoring its Afrodescendant population to recognizing it as an integral part of the nation in his dissertation, “Black Inclusion: Afro-Mexicans and the International Struggle for Recognition, 1974-2020.” He will collaborate with the Asociación de Mujeres de la Costa de Oaxaca (AMCO) to produce a short documentary film and develop educational infographics emphasizing women’s roles in this history, which will be presented in local schools and communities.

• The Afro-Mexican Struggle for Recognition
• Co-Producing Knowledge in Mexico’s Costa Chica

In her dissertation “Rhetorical Imaginaries of Liberation within Anti-Liberatory Spaces: Liberatory Rhetoric in Prison Education,” Celena Todora (English) will examine liberatory rhetoric in contexts, such as scholarship, pedagogy, and community organizing, within the field of prison education. She will conduct ethnographic research with the local abolitionist organization Let’s Get Free (LGF) and will produce multimodal and public-facing work. She was a Humanities Engage 2020-2021 Pitch Your Own Immersive Fellow.

• Let’s Get Inspired: Finding Motivation and Structure during a Pandemic Fellowship
• Reimagining “Immersive” Dissertation and Activist Work in a Zoom World

Drawing on both ethnographic and historical methods, Samuel Boateng (Music)’s dissertation project, “Jazz Sustainability in Ghana: Performance, Space, and Representation in Urban Africa,” is a multi-disciplinary and multi-sited work that focuses on three geographic locations – Ghana, the United States, and Britain – in order to assess the impact of Ghanaian musicians on the development, performance, and meanings of jazz beyond America’s borders. He is working with the Institute of African Studies to update Adepa Jazz Collection (AJC) documents and is completing a documentary film.

• Jazz Sustainability in Ghana: Performance, Space, and Representation in Urban Africa
• Documenting Jazz Beyond America’s Borders​
• Student Spotlight: Learn how Samuel used community-facing research into the stories of African Jazz musicians to expand canonical jazz history and create a documentary film.

In her dissertation “A Matter of Waste and Bodies: Life, Death, and Materiality in the United States-Mexico Borderlands 1990 to the Present,” Alyssa Quintanilla (English) uses literary representations and digital art to examine how concepts of waste are applied not just to the items border crossers leave behind, but to their bodies, leading to the diminishment of their voices, experiences, and deaths. She created Vistas de la Frontera, a digital memorial that captures some of the places where migrants’ bodies have been recovered. 

• A Matter of Waste and Bodies: Life, Death, and Materiality in the United States-Mexico Borderlands
• Digital Mourning: Some of the Sights and Sounds of the Sonoran Desert
• Student Spotlight: Learn how Alyssa used her experience in the field to create a digital memorial as part of her dissertation, find her own voice in her writing and successfully launch her tenure-track career.