From its start at the National Women’s Studies Association Conference in 2018, Cite Black Women has developed into a movement. As founder and COLA professor Christen Smith has said, “I’m not fighting to be on someone’s bibliography. I’m fighting to have my intellectual self respected, and the intellectual work of my foremothers respected, the intellectual work of my sisters and friends respected.”
Spring 2022
Dean’s Message
We’re back. Life & Letters is back in print after two years of digital-only issues. More importantly, our students, faculty, and staff were able to spend most of the academic year on campus. It was wonderful to see our community come back to life. The magazine’s return to print is a symbol of that rebirth. […]
In Memoriam: Nora C. England, Visionary Linguist and Mentor
Nora England’s passion for linguistics was sparked during her undergraduate years at Bryn Mawr College. Almost on a whim, she enrolled in a linguistics field methods course. “That really got me going—actually hearing data from another language and paying attention to it,” she recalled in an interview. “It was the first course that I ever […]
The Danger Imperative: Reckoning With the Perception of Violent Threat in American Police Culture
In July 2016, a gunman ambushed Dallas police officers, killing five, injuring an additional nine (along with two civilians), and fueling public rhetoric about a so called “war on cops.” At the time of the Dallas shooting, Michael Sierra-Arévalo, now an assistant professor of sociology at The University of Texas at Austin, was doing fieldwork […]
¿Cómo te sientes hoy? Department of Spanish and Portuguese Launches Course on Spanish Language in Mental Health Contexts
When Wilfredo José Burgos Matos designed and taught Spanish in Mental Health Contexts this spring, through the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, it was the culmination of a long journey. Burgos, a doctoral candidate in the department, first became aware of the need for such a course when he was struggling to find bilingual mental […]
Program in British Studies is now the Program in British, Irish and Empire Studies: Broadening the Range of Voices and Histories in the Field and Beyond
The program formerly known as British Studies is now the Program in British, Irish and Empire Studies (BIES). The change comes as Professor Philippa Levine, former Guggenheim Fellow and 2020–21 Eastman Professor at Oxford University, assumes sole directorial duties after serving as co-Director for several years. The four-decade-old program has been remodeled to better encompass […]
Teaching & Learning: #studentsofislamicart is Improving Wikipedia One Article at a Time
In fall 2018, Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies and Art & Art History Stephennie Mulder announced to her Arts of Islam students that she was switching things up and scrapping their final research paper. Instead, she said, they would all participate in a Wikipedia edit-a-thon, with the goal of better capturing and presenting the […]
Department of Psychology is Planning a New Major and Minor in Behavioral Data Science: Program Rethinks Pedagogical Model Toward Real-World Work Experiences
In the fall of 2024, the Department of Psychology hopes to launch a new, innovative undergraduate major and minor in Behavioral Data Science. It would be one of the first such programs in the nation. “It’s really a reenvisioning of what an education in psychology can be and how we assess it,” says Professor David […]
Her Neighbor’s Wife: Uncovering the Hidden History of Lesbian Desire in Post-war American Marriage
Lauren Jae Gutterman’s new book explores lesbian desire in the context of post-war heterosexual marriage.
The Sequencing of our Success: Q & A with Kathryn Paige Harden
In her book, The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality, psychology professor Kathryn Paige Harden explores how genes contribute to variation in complex life outcomes such as educational attainment and income level. She argues that understanding genetic impacts on these outcomes could and should be used to promote greater equity among individuals with […]
The Pilgrimage of Professor Latinx: Frederick Luis Aldama and the Making of an Academic Superhero
The origin story of Frederick Luis Aldama, professor of English at The University of Texas at Austin and academic superhero “Professor Latinx,” begins with a bus trip his mother took before he was born. She set out from her home in East Los Angeles toward Guatemala, intending to meet family members she’d only heard about […]
The Linguistics Research Center Celebrates 60 years of Innovation and Scholarship
Imagine a website that allows people from a variety of academic and non-academic backgrounds to learn ancient languages and research their histories. Now imagine it existing in 1999, way back in the early years of the internet. That’s the year the Linguistics Research Center (LRC) launched its free, online lesson series. The internet was a […]
Q&A with Mykhaylo (Misha) Simanovskyy, Graduate Student and Donetsk Native
Misha Simanovskyy is a native of Donetsk, Ukraine and a first-year graduate student pursuing a dual master’s degree in Global Policy Studies and Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies.
Assembling the February 24 Archive
Since the war began, Professor Steven Seegel has tweeted about 12,000 times. He plans to keep going, with the help of international colleagues in the digital humanities, for as long as necessary, in order to build what he’s calling “The February 24th Archive.”
A People’s History of New York City
Eric Tang’s new course, The Global City, will be offered exclusively during the fall 2022 session of the UTNY program, where UT students spend a semester living in New York City while continuing their studies and gaining work experience with a local internship.