2024-2025 Faculty Research Fellows
Faculty Research Fellows (FRF) for 2024-2025!
The Humanities Institute is proud to introduce a revitalized Faculty Research Fellows (FRF) program, designed with a renewed focus on accountability, research support, and the cultivation of external funding opportunities.
The FRF program is dedicated to fostering both individual and collaborative research projects, inspiring and reimagining research careers in the humanities.
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The Humanities Institute is thrilled to announce the selection of 12 outstanding projects for the 2024-2025 Faculty Research Fellows program.
These projects span across five schools/colleges and twelve departments/units at The University of Texas at Austin. Explore the faculty fellows and their outstanding projects below:
We are also honored and wish to thank the three (3) fellows selected as designated fellows for our three initiatives Dr. Amira Rose Davis, for Digital Humanities, Dr. Rebecca Falkoff, for AI, Science, & Culture; and Dr. Enzo E. Vasquez Toral for Intersectional Humanities.
Dr. Matthew Butler
Professor, History, College of Liberal Arts | The University of Texas at Austin
Project Name: Current book project, "Liberty in the Church: Catholic Dissent in Modern Mexico"
Brief Project Summary: "Liberty in the Church: Catholic Dissent in Modern Mexico" challenges the traditional narrative of seamless history and secularization by offering the first comprehensive account of dissentient and liberal Catholicism in 19th- and 20th-century Mexico. This book uniquely traces the history of Mexico’s various “antipopes” over a century, from the Insurgency that ended Spanish rule (1810-1821) to the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920).
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Dr. Paola Canova
Associate Professor, Anthropology, College of Liberal Arts | The University of Texas at Austin
Project Name: Wild Encounters: Cattle Ranching and the Politics of Nature in Paraguay
Brief Project Summary: This research project examines the renewed frontier-style development in the northern Chaco region of Paraguay, focusing on the impacts of intensive deforestation and ranching expansion. It explores how traditional hunting and ranching practices have shaped human-nature interactions and how current ranching practices are altering interspecies relations and the landscape. The study also investigates how mestizo ranchers and indigenous peoples are responding to rapid socio-ecological changes and how global discourses on climate change and natural resource protection are being localized by the state, NGOs, and corporate agribusinesses. Ultimately, it aims to reveal how interspecies dynamics are redefining contemporary politics of nature in South America. Funds will be used towards a fieldtrip to Filadelfia, Chaco in December 2024, to conduct interviews with local authorities (4 interviews) and conservationist NGOs (6 interviews). This is the final aspect of this project and completes the full spectrum of data collection.
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Dr. Hon Ki Cheung
Assistant Professor, Music Theory, Butler School of Music | The University of Texas at Austin
Project Name: First monograph, Looking Through the Prism: A Multilayered Reading of Chinese American
Compositions and Musical Identity.
Brief Project Summary: "First monograph, Looking Through the Prism: A Multilayered Reading of Chinese American Compositions and Musical Identity" explores the transnational and modernist music and identities of four Chinese American composers: Chen Yi, Bright Sheng, Tan Dun, and Zhou Long. It examines the contradictions in their understanding of “Chineseness” and how they recontextualize nationalist sounds into ethnic expressions in America. Their music and biographies reflect a complex artistic identity shaped by Chinese nationalism, American racialization, and intercultural and transnational discourse.
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Dr. Amira Rose Davis
Assistant Professor, African and African Diaspora Studies (AADS), College of Liberal Arts | The University of Texas at Austin
Project Name: Book project, “Can’t Eat a Medal”: The Lives and Labors of Black Women Athletes in the Age of Jim Crow
Brief Project Summary: “Can’t Eat a Medal” introduces readers to historically overlooked Black women in sports, highlighting their athletic participation during segregation and racial terror. The book aims to reveal the material and symbolic importance of Black women athletes to political projects, from Black institution building to U.S. statecraft and diplomacy. Across seven chapters, it explores the political nature of sport, examining debates about race, gender, sexuality, and nationalism in the mid-20th century. The research underscores the significance of sport in these dynamics, using diverse sources and methodologies to recast the history of gender, labor, and sport during the Jim Crow era. The book places Black women athletes at the intersection of sports history, labor history, and Black women’s history.
Dr. Amira Rose Davis is selected as the dedicated 2024-25 Initiative for Digital Humanities Fellow.
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Dr. Jennifer Ebbeler
Associate Professor, Classics, College of Liberal Arts | The University of Texas at Austin
Project Name: The Bishop and the Martyr: Negotiating Institutional Authority in Roman North Africa; applying for external research funding for a subsequent book project, an exploration of St. Augustine’s extraordinarily complex treatment of martyrs and martyrdom.
Brief Project Summary: The book project, The Bishop and the Martyr, focuses on Cyprian, a third-century CE Christian bishop and martyr in Carthage. While his theological positions are well-studied, this work examines how he used letter exchanges to assert his episcopal authority and manage the privileges of martyrs within institutionalized Christianity. Cyprian’s letters offer unique insights into the power struggles between clergy and martyrs in Carthage and the broader Western Roman Empire, providing rare evidence of the institutionalization of Christianity in the Latin-speaking West.
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Dr. Rebecca Falkoff
Assistant Professor, French and Italian, College of Liberal Arts | The University of Texas at Austin
Project Name: Manuscript-in-progress, Industrious Skies: Nitrogen Capture and the Atmosphere of Italian Fascism.
Brief Project Summary: This project is a cultural history of Italy’s interwar efforts to capture atmospheric nitrogen for use in fertilizers and explosives. It examines how the promise of these technologies influenced fascist strategies, including major initiatives like the Battle for Wheat, land reclamation, malaria eradication, pronatalism, autarky, and imperialism. Using various sources such as literary texts, science writing, and political propaganda, the project aims to provide a new understanding of fascist culture and its ideological atmospherics.
Dr. Rebecca Falkoff is selected as the dedicated 2024-25 AI, Science and Culture Initiative (AISCI) Fellow
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Dr. Mikiya Koyagi
Assistant Professor, Middle Eastern Studies, College of Liberal Arts | The University of Texas at Austin
Project Name: Current book project, "From Tokyo to Mecca: Reimagining Asia"
Brief Project Summary: The book project, "From Tokyo to Mecca: Reimagining Asia" examines “Islamic Pan-Asianism,” a form of Pan-Asianism that envisioned Asia as a unified civilizational space from Japan to Muslim-majority regions, including the Middle East. Emerging in late 19th-century Japan, this ideology reimagined Middle Easterners as “fellow Asians” with a shared civilizational essence. The study situates Japanese interactions with the Muslim world, particularly the Middle East, within the context of expanding Japanese commercial networks and global discourses on civilization, race, and religion.
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Dr. Robbie Kubala
Assistant Professor, Philosophy, College of Liberal Arts | The University of Texas at Austin
Project Name: Artworks and Persons
Brief Project Summary: Invitation by Oxford University Press to submit a book proposal, to complete in the next academic year. The proposal will include two of the book’s six chapters, focusing on how artworks convey meaning and how we hold artists responsible for their work. Drawing on the philosophy of action and speech act theory, I argue that artworks have meaning through the actions of artists. The book will also explore understanding artworks similarly to understanding people, emphasizing the personal connection in interpreting art.
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Dr. Bryan Norwood
Assistant Professor, School of Architecture | The University of Texas at Austin
Project Name: Constructing the New South: “Southern Architect and Building News,” 1889–1932
Brief Project Summary: “Constructing the New South” explores the architectural and built environment history of the New South era (1870s-1930s) using the journal Southern Architect and Building News (SABN). Published from 1889 to 1932, SABN documented building and design activities across the US South. The project, supported by the UT School of Architecture, will use transcription software and GIS mapping to analyze and map key themes, individuals, and materials. The book will be launched in 2026 as a print and digitally open-access publication.
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Dr. Athanasios (Nassos) Papalexandrou
Assistant Professor,Department of Art and Art History, College of Fine Arts | The University of Texas at Austin
Project Name: First full draft of a book-length project titled: Gifts for the President: Antiquities as Diplomatic Gifts in Greek-US Political Relations after WWII.
Brief Project Summary: "Gifts for the President: Antiquities as Diplomatic Gifts in Greek-US Political Relations after WWII" examines diplomatic gifts from Greek officials to US presidents, including antiquities and modern objects inspired by ancient Greek originals. This practice began during the Truman administration and continues today. Many of these artifacts, stored in US Presidential libraries, are rarely exhibited. The collection includes ceramics from the Greek Geometric period to Byzantium, and various metal and stone artifacts. The book highlights these objects as significant examples of Greek art and culture.
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Dr. Peng Peng
Assistant Professor, Special Education, College of Education | The University of Texas at Austin
Project Name: A Pilot Study on the Effectiveness of Integrative Intervention Including Mathematics Anxiety, Mathematics Working Memory, and Mathematics Skills (M3 Project)
Brief Project Summary: This project aims to submit a manuscript to peer-reviewed journals and present findings at conferences. It seeks to provide empirical evidence and a theoretical framework for integrating social-emotional, cognitive, and mathematics skills in interventions for at-risk learners. The project will also generate pilot data for an exploratory IES or NSF proposal, which will include study groups focusing on mathematics anxiety, working memory, skills instruction, and a business-as-usual approach.
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Dr. Enzo E. Vasquez Toral
Assistant Professor, Theatre and Dance, College of Fine Arts | The University of Texas at Austin
Project Name: First manuscript, tentatively titled Folkloric Queens: Performance, Queerness, and Indigeneity in the Andes.
Brief Project Summary: "Folkloric Queens: Performance, Queerness, and Indigeneity in the Andes" explores how Andean folklore has become a platform for queer males and trans females in Peru and Bolivia in the 21st century. It examines how theater, dance, and drag artists have adapted ritual cross-dressing in folkloric dance-dramas during Catholic patron-saint fiestas. The book highlights changes in costuming, dance, and masking by queer and trans performers, who use these traditions to resist LGBTQ discrimination. Introducing the concept of “cuir devotion,” it analyzes how these performers blend devotion to performance, queer Indigeneity, and Andean folklore, challenging the boundaries between the sacred and the secular while centering Indigenous perspectives on gender performance.
Dr. Enzo E. Vasquez Toral is selected as the dedicated 2024-25 Intersectional Humanities Initiative Fellow.
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