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Robert Penn Waren Center Category

Meet a Fellow: Sarah C. DiMaggio

Jan. 31, 2022—Meet Sarah C. DiMaggio, a 2021-2022 RPW Center Environments Graduate Student Fellow. She is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Philosophy, and her dissertation is entitled, “Rediscovering Kin: The Ethical Significance of Kinship with Nature.”   What is your research about and why does it matter? My research aims to transform traditional moral theories and...

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Meet a Fellow: Miguel Ángel Chávez

Jan. 24, 2022—Miguel Ángel Chávez is the 2021-2022 William J. Vaughn Fellow at the RPW Center and the J. Léon Helguera Graduate Fellow in the Department of History. His research traces the evolution of British geography from 1830 to 1935.  What is your research about and why does it matter? Broadly speaking, my research looks at the trajectory of...

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Meet a Fellow: Ken MacLeish

Nov. 29, 2021—Meet Ken MacLeish, a 2021-2022 RPW Center Faculty Fellow. This year’s group is exploring the theme of “Environments.” What does the phrase “Environments” mean to you?  “Environments” to me are the collections of things—places, objects, forces, non-human and even human life—that are socially designated as “other” to humanity but which are too materially, biologically, symbolically, or...

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Meet a Fellow: Jennifer Gutman

Nov. 12, 2021—Meet Jennifer Gutman, a 2021-2022 RPW Center Environments Graduate Student Fellow. She is a fifth-year joint-Ph.D. candidate in English and Comparative Media Analysis & Practice (CMAP). Her dissertation, “End-Holocene Realism: Archiving Epochal Transition in the Contemporary Novel,” explores how contemporary realist novels respond to the distinct forms of crisis, risk, and uncertainty that characterize life at the onset of a new epoch. ...

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Intersections as Proxies for Home Address: Alternatives for Community GIS

Nov. 9, 2021—Danielle Wilfong is a doctoral student in the Community Research and Action program with a specialization in socio-spatial research at Vanderbilt Peabody College. She was also the 2020-2021 RPW Center HASTAC Scholar. Do you remember road trips in the 1990s? I recall badgering my dad to pull over and ask for directions. When we finally convinced him,...

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Meet a Fellow: Teresa A. Goddu

Nov. 1, 2021—Meet Teresa A. Goddu, a 2021-2022 RPW Center Faculty Fellow. This year’s group is exploring the theme of “Environments.” What does the phrase “Environments” mean to you? I am thinking about our keyword “environments” specifically in terms of landscape—both actual and imagined. Landscape is such a rich terrain through which to investigate the history and culture...

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El Día de los Muertos

Oct. 25, 2021—Alma Paz-Sanmiguel is an administrative assistant II for CLACX at Vanderbilt University. Learn more and reserve tickets for the Día de los Muertos festival at Cheekwood Estate and Gardens (October 30-31, 2021) In the sixteenth century, Spaniards brought the Roman Catholic celebrations of life, death, and regeneration to Latin America, where they fused with indigenous rituals that honored...

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The Moral Conflict of Democratic Citizenship

Oct. 18, 2021—Robert Talisse is the W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University and author of Sustaining Democracy: What We Owe to the Other Side (Oxford 2021). Vanderbilt Bookstore is hosting a launch for his book this Thursday, October 21st at 5 p.m. It is free and open to the public. A moral conflict lies at the heart...

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Américas Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature

Oct. 11, 2021—Colleen McCoy is the Outreach Coordinator of the Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies at Vanderbilt University. She also co-coordinates the Américas Award for Children’s & Young Adult Literature. Tonight (October 11), the Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies (CLACX) at Vanderbilt University and the Stone Center for Latin American Studies at Tulane University will...

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Meet a Fellow: Eric Okamoto Akira MacPhail

Oct. 4, 2021—Eric O. A. MacPhail is the 2021-2022 George J. Graham Jr. Fellow from the Philosophy Department. His research specializes in social and political philosophy, the philosophy of race, and 19th and 20th century continental philosophy. What is your research about and why does it matter? Scholars are turning more and more toward theories of racist ideology...

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