Arts & Humanities

María Ospina, associate professor of Spanish, believes that writing fiction is another powerful way to engage the subjects that have driven her academic work—memory, violence, and culture. “Right now, I think that this is the way that I am going to continue exploring intellectual issues that interest me, including those related to history and politics,” said Ospina, who previously published a book of cultural criticism. Her debut book of short stories, Variations on the Body, has been translated into English from Spanish by Heather Cleary and was published in the United States in July by Coffee House Press. The book…

It’s common today to speak of building one’s brand—everyone from world leaders to precocious teens are worried about their image, shaping their personalities online, creating a persona that straddles reality and the imagined. For the Medici family, the 16th-century rulers of Florence and Tuscany and patrons of some of the most famous Renaissance artwork, the tools to accomplish this were very different from those of today. However, the objective was the same. Wesleyan's Davison Arts Center (DAC) is participating in an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art called “The Medici: Portraits and Politics, 1512-1570,” currently on display through October…

Robyn Autry, associate professor of sociology, studies racial identity, Blackness, and memory, in addition to the politics of museum development in the United States and South Africa. She is the author of eight recent articles relating to these topics. Her work includes the following: “Historical Memory-Making in South Africa,” published in The Oxford Handbook of South African History in December 2020. “Sociology’s Race Problem,” published in Aeon in November 2020. "UNC's rejection of Nikole Hannah-Jones and the Opacity of Tenure in America," published by NBC News in May 2021. “Trump’s 1776 Commission Tried to Rewrite History. Biden Had Other Ideas,”…

Jasmyn Choi '22 vividly recalls when her Korean-born mother was pulled over by police in Los Angeles 12 years ago. Rather than speaking to the driver, who had broken English, the officer leaned into the vehicle to question 8-year-old Jasmyn instead. Jasmyn, after all, had "perfect" English. "I’ve always dealt with the particular trauma of strangers diminishing my mother’s intelligence because of her accent," Choi recalls. "I tremble in anger thinking of the times she’s had her voice stolen from her. We both sat in the car in oppressive silence, yet it was comforting because silence is all we have…

A new book written by two Wesleyan faculty explores the experience of two travelers in the land destroyed by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011. William Johnston, John E. Andrus Professor of History, and Eiko Otake, visiting artist in dance, are the co-authors of A Body in Fukushima, published June 1 by Wesleyan University Press. Johnston, a historian and photographer, accompanied Japanese-born performer and dancer Otake on five explorations across Fukushima, creating 200 photographs that document the irradiated landscape, accentuated by Eiko's poses depicting both the sorrow and dignity of the land. Johnston elaborated on the process of creating…

Ospina Explores the Struggle of Searching for Community in New Book

Davison Art Center Lends Rare 16th-Century Print to the Met

Autry Pens Articles on Race, Identity, and Politics in the U.S.

Shu Tokita Prize Winners Reid ’22, Choi ’22 Use Literature to Cope with POC Experiences

Johnston, Otake Explore Fukushima Disaster in New Book