Presenters

Kağan Arík’s research focuses on the historical development of the Turkish language and its various dialects. He is a member of the American Association of Teachers of Turkish and Turkic Languages. Arík also is an anthropologist (socio-cultural, linguistic, musical, medical) of Central Asia and has studied the region since 1987. He has 30 years of experience in language pedagogy for modern Turkish language and literature and has designed curricula for intensive elementary, intermediate, and advanced Turkish language, as well as modern Turkish literature. Arík is the Ayaslı Instructional Professor in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies and the College at the University of Chicago. 

Philip V. Bohlman is an ethnomusicologist working across the aesthetic, religious, and musical borderlands of global encounter. Weaving together research approaches from ethnography and history, he has pursued research over many years in Europe, the Middle East, especially Israel, and South Asia, with comparative studies in the U.S. and with global popular music. Among his most recent books are Song Loves the Masses: Herder on Music and Nationalism (2017), Wie sängen wir Seinen Gesang auf dem Boden der Fremde (2019), and Heiner Mṻller and Heiner Goebbels’s Wolokolamsker Chaussee (2021). Bohlman is also a performer, producing four CD sets as Artistic Director of the New Budapest Orpheum Society, an ensemble-in-residence of the University of Chicago Division of the Humanities. He is the Ludwig Rosenberger Distinguished Service Professor  in the Department of Music and the College at the University of Chicago.

Katherine Buse’s research focuses on digital media, technoscience, science fiction, and the environment. Her book in progress, “Speculative Planetology: Science, Culture and the Building of Model Worlds,” discusses how the world building of popular science fiction media is related to the work of planetary and climate scientists. She also uses video game design and criticism to think about questions of science, technology, and the environment. Buse considers how can game design help imagine better environmental futures. How can video game storylines contribute to citizen science? She is Assistant Professor of Cinema and Media Studies and the Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization at the University of Chicago.

Leslie Buxbaum is a writer and director often working on devised theater productions, which bring together different performance languages such as dance-theater, circus-theater, clown-theater, and music-theater. Her current projects include being book writer and co-lyricist for Out Here (in development at Court Theatre) with composer/lyricist Erin McKeown and David J. Levin. Buxbaum has been the collaborating director for more than a decade with Lucky Plush Productions, whose dance-theater productions have received the National Dance Project Award, National Theater Project Award, and the National Performance Network creation fund award. Her projects as stage director with Third Coast Percussion include “Metamorphosis” with Movement Art Is (Lil Buck & Jon Boogz), “Paddle to the Sea,” and “Wild Sound,” composed by Wilco’s Glenn Kotche, which have been performed throughout the U.S. and Europe. Buxbaum is Associate Professor of Practice in Theater and Performance Studies at the University of Chicago.

Zachary Cahill is an interdisciplinary artist and the director of Programs and Fellowships at the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry, as well as the founding editor-in-chief of Portable Gray. 

Benjamin Callard’s research focuses on ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of the mind. This year, he is teaching courses in the philosophy of language, metaphysics and epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of logic; Callard has received several teaching awards from the University of Chicago. His most recent publication, "Comforting Counterfactuals," is forthcoming in Time, Meaning, and Value (Oxford University Press), a collection honoring the work of Samuel Scheffler, which explores how individuals should feel about what might have been. Callard is an Instructional Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Chicago.

Heidi Coleman is a director, dramaturg, and game designer. She has positioned herself at the intersection of games and performance and serves as a co-director of The Fourcast Lab, a transmedia design collective based at the University of Chicago, which creates Alternate Reality Games (ARGs), pervasive games, cross-platform stories, and networked performances. Coleman is a Senior Instructional Professor for Theater and Performance Studies at the University of Chicago.

Stephanie Cristello is a contemporary art curator, critic, and author living in Chicago. She serves as the director/curator at Chicago Manual Style & P.S. (Publishing Services). 

Marc Downie’s pioneering approach to digital art combines three signature elements: non-photorealistic computational imagery; the incorporation of body movement by motion-capture; and the autonomy of artworks directed by artificial intelligence. His collaborative works have responded to an ever-expanding range of materials—drawing, film, dance, photography, music, architecture—and his work has been exhibited, commissioned, and collected by film festivals, museums, and performance venues worldwide. Always collaborative and always crossing disciplinary boundaries, his work enters and exits fields without permission from, and without deference to, established disciplinary structures. Downie is Associate Professor of Practice in the Arts in the Department of Cinema and Media Studies, Media Arts and Design, and the College at the University of Chicago.

Ariane Echenique Calleja’s research includes bilingualism, code-switching, and the role of culture in language teaching. Deeply passionate about the Basque language and culture, she is dedicated to bringing these elements to life in her classroom, helping students connect with the rich heritage of the Basque Country. Echenique Calleja is Assistant Instructional Professor in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago.

Martha Feldman's research ranges from the early modern to present-day Italian music and other parts of Europe. She is the author of City Culture and the Madrigal at Venice (1995), Opera and Sovereignty: Transforming Myths in Eighteenth-Century Italy (2007), The Castrato: Reflections on Natures and Kinds (2015), and her forthcoming book “Castrato Phantoms: Moreschi, Fellini, and the Sacred Vernacular in Rome” (2025), as well as edited collections on voice, courtesans’ arts, spectrality, performance, and music historiography. She is the winner of many prizes, including the Laing Award, the Graduate Teaching and Mentoring Award, and the Sze Award. Feldman is the Ferdinand Schevill Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Music and the College at the University of Chicago.

Patti Gibbons is the Head of Collection Management at the Special Collections Research Center and is the project manager of UChicago’s Year of Games initiative.

Amber Ginsburg is a Chicago-based artist and educator. Her site-generated projects and social sculptures blend historical scenarios with contemporary issues, envisioning alternative futures. Ginsburg explores the continuities and disruptions in material and social histories. Collaborating with communities and experts in fields like botany, political activism, and science fiction, she focuses on human survival and feminist strategies. Her large-scale sculptures invite audience participation, examining the blurred boundaries between human and nonhuman agency. Through material lineages such as tree species and porcelain, Ginsburg collaborates with objects as co-creators and narrative instigators. She is a Lecturer in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago.

Cece Rodriguez, BA ‘26, Philosophy and Allied Fields, Psychology

Jordan Parker, MA ‘26, Public Policy, concentration in Culture and Arts Policy & International Development

Meg Jackson Fox oversees academic and community engagement at the Feitler Center for Academic Inquiry and Education at the Smart Museum of Art. Her interests include contemporary visual culture, experimental storytelling, and community collaborations. Jackson Fox has contributed to publications, exhibitions, lectures, and symposia both nationally and internationally. Previously, she served as curator of Interdisciplinary and Community Practices at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona and assistant professor of Global Art History at the University of Denver. Jackson Fox is the Director of the Feitler Center for Academic Inquiry and Head of Education at the Smart Museum of Art.

Erik Houle’s academic interests include historical and comparative Slavic morphology and syntax, language contact, language and culture, foreign language pedagogy, and second language acquisition. He is Assistant Senior Instructional Professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago.

Patrick Jagoda’s research focuses on media theory, game studies and design, science studies, and 20th- and 21st-century American literature and culture. He designs transmedia, digital and analog games, including the climate change alternate reality game “Terrarium” (2019), which received the 2020 IndieCade award for the best Location Based and Live Play Design. His books include Network Aesthetics (2016), The Game Worlds of Jason Rohrer (2016), Experimental Games (2020), and Transmedia Stories (2022). He is a recipient of a 2020 Guggenheim Fellowship. Jagoda is the William Rainey Harper Professor of English Language and Literature, Cinema and Media Studies, and Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Chicago. He also serves as the director of the Weston Game Lab and co-founder of the Game Changer Chicago Design Lab and Fourcast Lab.

Derek Kennet’s research areas include the rise of Islam, economic responses to arid environments, and the interactions between the Arabian Peninsula and nearby societies. He has coauthored several books, the most recent of which—"Southeast Arabia at the dawn of the second millennium: The Bronze Age communal graves of Qarn al-Harf, Ras al-Khaimah (UAE): Southeast Arabia at the dawn of the second millennium”—is forthcoming from Oxbow Books in 2024. Kennet is the Howard E. Hallengren Professor in Middle Eastern Studies and the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures.

Kimberly Kenny teaches beginning and intermediate Norwegian language, and Norwegian literature. Trained as a literary comparatist, she teaches courses that seek to integrate Germanic literatures such as "Reconnecting Two Germanic Literatures," which examines connections between Knut Hamsun and Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann and Alexander Kielland, and Henrik Ibsen and Gerhart Hauptmann; “Comparative Fairy Tale,” which encompasses Norwegian, Danish (H.C. Andersen), and German (Brothers Grimm) fairy tales, and “Scandinavian Women’s Literature.” In a strictly Norwegian vein, she offers a course on Ibsen, as well as one about the Nazi Occupation of Norway called, “Literature of the Occupation.” Kenny is Senior Instructional Professor in the Department of Germanic Studies at the University of Chicago.

Jessica Kirzane teaches all levels of Yiddish language and enjoys introducing students to a wide range of texts from Yiddish culture, including Yiddish literature written in and about Chicago. Also, she is a literary translator from Yiddish and has translated three books by Yiddish novelist Miriam Karpilove: Diary of a Lonely Girl (2020), Judith (2022) and A Provincial Newspaper and Other Stories (2023). She is the editor-in-chief of In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies. Kirzane is Associate Instructional Professor in the Department of Germanic Studies at the University of Chicago.

David J. Levin’s work focuses on the aesthetics and politics of performance in opera, theater, and cinema. From 2011to 2016, he served as the founding Director of the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry and from 2018 to 2023, he served as Senior Advisor to the Provost for Arts. In addition to his scholarship and teaching, Levin has worked extensively as a dramaturg and collaborator for opera, theater, and dance productions in Germany and the United States. Among many collaborators, he has worked with Robert Altman, Ruth Berghaus, and William Forsythe. Currently, he is collaborating on productions at the Court Theatre on campus and the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Levin is the Alice H. and Stanley G. Harris Distinguished Service Professor in the Departments of Germanic Studies, Cinema and Media Studies, and the Program in Theater and Performance Studies at the University of Chicago.

Miguel Martínez's research and teaching focus on the cultural and literary histories of early modern Spain, colonial Latin America, and the Philippines. He is the author of Front Lines. Soldiers’ Writing in the Early Modern Hispanic World ( 2016; trans. Las líneas del frente, 2024), Comuneros. El rayo y la semilla (1520‒1521) (2021) and of a critical edition of Catalina/Antonio de Erauso’s Vida y sucesos de la Monja Alférez (2021). Currently, he is finishing a book on the literature and urban culture of colonial Manila. Martínez is Professor in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago.

Bel Olid has been regularly active as a translator into Catalan and, to a lesser extent, into Spanish, mainly of feminist and queer literature and children's books, from English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. They became known as an author in 2010 when they received the Documenta Prize for their novel Una terra solitària (2010) and the Rovelló Essay Prize for their study Les heroïnes contrataquen (2011). Olis regularly collaborates in many branches of the Catalan cultural media and written press. They were president of CEATL (European Council of Literary Translators' Associations, 2013‒2015) and president of Associació d'Escriptors en Llengua Catalana (AELC–Association of Writers in Catalan Language, March 2015 to March 2022). Olid is Assistant Instructional Professor in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago.

James Osborne is an archaeologist who works in the eastern Mediterranean and ancient Middle East during the Bronze and Iron Ages (ca. 3500‒500 BCE). He focuses especially on Anatolia, a region that is today within the Republic of Turkey, during the late second and early first millennium BCE. Most of his publications have concentrated on the intersection of space and power, using analysis of Anatolian monumental buildings, cities, and settlement patterns during the Iron Age as his primary subject matter. His recent monograph, The Syro-Anatolian City-States: An Iron Age Culture, examines the nature and organization of an Iron Age culture in southern Turkey and northern Syria, which existed from roughly 1200 to 700 BCE. Osborne is Associate Professor in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago.

Tina Post’s recent monograph, Deadpan: The Aesthetics of Black Inexpression (2023), won book awards from the Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present, the American Theatre and Drama Society, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, and the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism. Her scholarly articles have appeared in ASAP/Journal, Modern Drama, TDR, International Review of African American Art (IRAAA), and the edited collection Race and Performance after Repetition. Her creative work can be found in Imagined Theaters, Stone Canoe, The Appendix, and Portable Gray. Post is associate professor in the Department of English Language and Literature and the Committee in Theater and Performance Studies, and an associate member of the Departments of Art History and Visual Arts at the University of Chicago.

Srikanth “Chicu” Reddy is a poet, critic, and literary editor who studies poetry across a range of forms, historical periods, and regions. He is the author of the poetry collections Underworld Lit (2020), Voyager(2011), and Facts for Visitors (2004), and a book of criticism, Changing Subjects: Digressions in Modern American Poetry (2012). A book of lectures on poetry and painting, “The Unsignificant,” will be published in fall 2024. He is poetry editor of The Paris Review, and series editor of the Phoenix Poets book series at the University of Chicago Press. Reddy is a Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature and the Program in Creative Writing at the University of Chicago. 

Julia Rhoads is the founding Artistic Director of Lucky Plush Productions, a MacArthur Award-winning ensemble recognized for its unique blend of dance, theater, comedy, and socially relevant themes. Her work for Lucky Plush has toured to more than 80 venues worldwide, including the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Joyce Theater, Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, ODC, Wellesley Center, and Teatro Las Carolinas. Other choreography credits include Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Steppenwolf Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Lookingglass Theatre, and Art on THE MART, the world’s largest digital installation. She is the recipient of an Alpert Award in Dance, and creation and touring awards Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography, National Endowment for the Arts, National Dance Project, and National Theater Project. Rhoads is a former member of the San Francisco Ballet and ensemble member of XSIGHT! Performance Group. She is the Director of Dance and Assistant Senior Instructional Professor in Theater and Performance Studies at the University of Chicago.

Steven Rings’s research focuses on popular music, voice, and transformational theory. His first book, Tonality and Transformation (2011), received the Emerging Scholar Award from the Society for Music Theory. His second book, What Did You Hear?: The Music of Bob Dylan, is forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press. Rings is Associate Professor in the Department of Music at the University of Chicago.

Juliano Saccomani’s research focuses on the use of virtual reality as an aid to the teaching of languages and cultures in the foreign language class. He works with the representation of cultures and their implications in diverse media, such as newspapers, literature, and video games. He is also the editor-in-chief of Revista Vaeranda, an online magazine for students of foreign languages and cultures. Saccomani is Assistant Instructional Professor in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures and the director of the Spanish and Portuguese Virtual Reality Initiative at the University of Chicago.

Since the 1990s, Jason Salavon's practice has explored the dynamic relationship between computational technology and visual culture. His work spans both data-driven art, transforming vast cultural datasets into compelling visual forms, and generative art, using custom algorithms to create original imagery. His pieces, held in collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, uncover hidden patterns in popular culture and human behavior. In a recent turn, Salavon has published computer science papers on novel AI models and is currently investigating the creative potential of AI in artistic processes. Salavon is Associate Professor in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago. 

Mike Schuh lives in Chicago where he works to support artists and other creative practitioners as the Associate Director of Fellowships and Operations at the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry, and Co-founder of the art gallery Regards.

Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi's research focuses on second language acquisition and pedagogy, as well as psycholinguistics and Persian literary translation. She teaches Persian language and culture at all proficiency levels as well as Persian media and Persian literary translation. Before joining the University of Chicago, she taught Persian language and linguistics and Persian literature and translation at McGill University (2006‒2021), the University of Oxford (2014‒2015), and Tehran Azad University (1997‒2004). Shabani-Jadidi is an Instructional Professor in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago.

Eric Slauter is a specialist in early American cultural, intellectual, legal, and political history. He has published The State as a Work of Art: The Cultural Origins of the Constitution (2009) and a series of essays on the language of rights and equality in early America. Slauter recently recorded 12 lectures on the Declaration of Independence for the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in New York and is completing a book on the Declaration’s origins, meanings, and afterlives. He is Deputy Dean of the Humanities and Master of the Humanities Collegiate Division at the University of Chicago, where he is an associate professor in the Department of English Language and Literature, an associate faculty member in the Divinity School, and serves as the founding director of the Karla Scherer Center for the Study of American Culture. 

Joel Snyder is renowned as a world-leading expert in 19th-century photographic history. For more than four decades, he has contributed to and edited the Critical Inquiry literary journal. An accomplished photographer, Snyder has taught his students how to integrate intellectual rigor into their photographs. His books include Gentlemen Photographers: the Work of Loring Underwood and William Lyman Underwood (1987); American Frontiers: The Photographs of Timothy H. O’Sullivan, 1867‒1874 (1981); and co-authored with Doug Munson The Documentary Photograph as a Work of Art: American Photographs, 1860‒1876 (1976). Snyder is professor emeritus in the Department of Art History at the University of Chicago.

The Tablet Collection team, including undergraduate researcher and photographer Danielle Levy, assistant curators Madeline Ouimet and Marta Díaz Herrera, Postdoc Ryan Winters, and Tablet Collection Curator and Associate Professor of Assyriology Susanne Paulus, will present the tour. The tablet collection team conducts research on various aspects of ancient Iraq's cultural heritage, including economic and legal history, literature, language contact, religion, and the materiality of writing in its archaeological context. 

Holiday Vega is the Librarian for Health, Psychology, and Social Work and is the selector for the University of Chicago Library’s growing video game collection. 

Candace Vogler's research focuses on moral philosophy, with special interest in metaphysics, moral psychology, and the foundations of the ethical. She has written two books, John Stuart Mill's Deliberative Landscape and Reasonably Vicious, as well as articles on ethics, feminism and gender studies, philosophy and literature, cinema studies, and psychoanalysis. Vogler is the David B. and Clara E. Stern Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Chicago.