These visits give students first-hand access to scholars, authors, performers, and community leaders whose work they are studying. Initiated during a year of remote learning, the Virtual Classroom Visits program continues to make possible unparalleled opportunities for student engagement with scholars in the classroom. A sampling of confirmed visits follows. View Past Virtual Classroom Visits for previous semesters.
Spring 2023
February 6, 2023
Curtis Dozier, assistant professor of Greek and Roman studies at Vassar College, visits Professor Tim Joseph's class in The Classics and Conflict in the U.S. to talk about his web project Pharos, which tracks the uses of Ancient Greek and Roman models and ideas by hate groups. His visit to the class in 2021 opened up students' eyes to the ways that old ideas take on destructive power in the U.S. and elsewhere — and the importance of exposing those uses.
March 21, 2023
Melissa Schoenberger, associate professor of English at Wesleyan University, visits Professor
Melissa Schoenberger's seminar on Alexander Pope to explore the ethics of reading works of literary history that include material that is racist, imperialist and destructive to the environment.
March 23, 2023
Cara Healey, assistant professor of Chinese and Asian studies at Wabash College, visit Professor Yongli Li's course on Chinese Culture Through the Camera's Eye, to help students consider the ways Chinese science fiction film and literature portray environmental catastrophe and explore the possibilities and limitations of collective action as a response.
March 29, 2023
Kathryn Getek Soltis, director of the Center for Peace Education and assistant professor of Christian ethics at Villanova University, visits Professor Mary Doyle Roche's class on the Ethics of Work and Family to discuss her work on the impact of mass incarceration on families.
March 31, 2023
Amanda Larson, technical advisor at the Carter Center, visits Professor Tsitsi Masvawure's class, Critical Issues in Global Health, to talk about her experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa, focusing specifically on the key lessons she learned about ethical community engagement.
April 3, 2023
Alexandre Martins, associate professor of ethics at Marquette University, visits Professor Mary Doyle Roche's class in Pursuing Health to talk about scholarship and advocacy for health as a common good.
April 4, 2023
George Kunnath,
professor at London School of Economics, visits Rev. Selva Rathinam, S.J.'s seminar on Social Stratification in India to discuss the Untouchables (Dalits) in India and their resistance to oppression over hundreds of years.
April 13, 2023
January Gill O'Neil, associate professor of English at Salem State University, visit Professor Susan Elizabeth Sweeney's class in African American Poetry to share and discuss her recent poems about contemporary issues of race and social justice, such as "At the Dedication of the Emmett Till Memorial," co-winner of the 2022 Allen Ginsberg Award.
April 24, 2023
Apekshya Prasai, a PhD candidate at MIT, visits Professor Aditi Malik's class on Women, War and Violence to discuss her extensive ethnographic fieldwork that explores women's high participation rate in the Maoist conflict in Nepal. Estimates suggest women constituted 40% of the insurgents during the 10-year civil war, 1996-2006—a staggering number from a comparative perspective.
May 1, 2023
Annie Smart, professor of French at Saint Louis University, visits Emma Burston's seminar, Ecologies of Collapse, to introduce students to 19th-century French authors and activists who wrote about about/fought against deforestation. Her presentation will help them to better understand France’s history of conservatism.
May 2, 2023
Dr. Tessa Chelouche, MD, co-chair of Department of Bioethics and the Holocaust, UNESCO Chair in Bioethics (Haifa), and co-director of the Maimonides Institute for Medicine, Ethics and the Holocaust (USA), visits Professor Dan Bitran's class on Science, Medicine and the Holocaust to discuss her membership on the recently formed Lancet Commission on Medicine and the Holocaust: Historical Evidence, Implications for Today, Teaching for Tomorrow.
May 3, 2023
Poet Sally Read, author of the autobiographical "Night's Bright Darkness," visits Rev. John Gavin's Christian Autobiography seminar to discuss her own conversion story, her process of self-reflection and composition and her work as a Christian artist.
Fall 2022
September 15, 2022
Lisa Fishbayn Joffe, Shulamit Reinharz Director of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute and director of the Project on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law at Brandeis University, visits Professor Vickie Langohr’s course on Middle East Politics to speak on agunot (or “chained women”)— Jewish women who are denied a legal divorce and are forced to remain married.
September 15, 2022
Nonfiction writer Paco Inclán, professor at Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno in Spain, visits Professor Rodrigo Fuentes’ class Creative Writing in Spanish to discuss his crónica “Me confunden con un animal.”
September 19, 2022
Scott Cave, an independent scholar and paleography consultant, visits Professor Hannah Abrahamson’s class on Wicked Women & Proud Patriarchs: Gender and Sexuality in Colonial Latin America to discuss his article “Madalena: The Entangled History of One Indigenous Floridian Woman in the Atlantic World.”
September 22, 2022
Nyoman Triyana Usadhi, a Balinese and Javanese dancer, will visit Professor Lynn Kremer's Asia on Stage class to discuss the role of religion in Indonesian arts and demonstrate how dance forms are manifested in current temple ceremonies.
September 28, 2022
Artist and writer Quan Zhou visits Professor Carolina Blazquez Gandara’s class on Advanced Oral Expression in Spanish to discuss how her experience as a first generation Spaniard influences her graphic works on migration and identity.
October 5, 2022
John Schafer, visiting assistant professor at Wake Forest University, visits Professor Timothy Joseph’s class on Virgil: Nation and Individual, to shed light on the ancient African queen Dido, as presented in Virgil’s epic poem the Aeneid.
October 6, 2022
Reigan Gillam, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Southern California, visits Professor Bridget Franco’s class on Latin America through Cinema to present on contemporary Afro-Latin representations in cinema with a discussion of the figure of Black children in Latin American film.
October 7, 2022
Jonathan Henshaw, research fellow at the Institute of Modern History, Academica Sinica, visits Professor Morgan Rocks’ class on World War II in Asia, to present on the issue of Chinese collaborators during the War against Japan (1937-1945).
October 17, 2022
Colin Ellard, professor of psychology at the University of Waterloo, visits Professor Carolyn Richardson’s Montserrat seminar on Selfhood and Place to discuss the book “Places of the Heart: The Psychogeography of Everyday Life.”
October 20, 2022
Adam Hannah, lecturer in the School of English at the University College, Cork, Ireland, visits Professor Paige Reynolds’ class in Irish Topics: Literary Activism to present archival research on W.B. Yeats’ plat “The King's Threshold,” and the idea of hunger striking as political protest.
October 26, 2022
Catherine Tracy Goode, director of the Tools for Researchers Program, visits Professor Hannah Abrahamson’s class on Wicked Women & Proud Patriarchs: Gender and Sexuality in Colonial Latin America to lead a primary source analysis of a selection of love letters from Yucatan, Mexico written by women in the 18th century.
November 3, 2022
Kristina Leo, artist and manager at Cornerscape Artist Management, visits Professor Melissa Boyle’s class on Economics of the Arts to talk about her career in artist management and the impact of COVID-19 on artists.
November 8, 2022
Yasmin Omar, an international human rights lawyer, visits Professor Vickie Langohr’s Middle East Politics class to talk about the human rights situation in Egypt, including the radicalization of young men jailed on bogus terrorism charges who are placed in cells with ISIS detainees.
November 8, 2022
John Emigh, professor emeritus at Brown University, visits Professor Lynn Kremer’s class Asia on Stage to share photographic and video research of temple ceremony performances in rural India.
November 9, 2022
Yao Jiaqi, research fellow at the Institute of Asian Research at the University of British Columbia, visits Professor Morgan Rocks’ class on World War II in East Asia to discuss how Chinese and American journalists mediated truth and reality during the 1937-1945 War of Resistance against Japan.
November 11, 2022
Gabriel Sanchez, photo editor at the New York Times and professor of photography at Parsons The New School of Design, visits Professor Colleen Fitzgerald’s class to discuss photojournalism and how to use the arts and photography to tell human-centered stories and increase empathy.
November 11, 2022
Gloria Chien, associate professor of religion at Gonzaga University, visits Professor Todd Lewis’ class on Buddhism to teach the beliefs and practices associated with a Buddhist form of meditation class Lojong.
November 11, 2022
Andrew McDowell, assistant professor at Tulane University, visits Professor Tsitsi Masvawure’s class on Introduction to Global Health to talk about treating tuberculosis, a disease of poverty and marginalization that kills millions everyday.
November 15, 2022
Mary Kouyoumdjian, assistant professor of composition at Boston Conservatory and a lecturer at Columbia University, visits Professor Matthew Jaskot’s Music Theory class to discuss how she draws on her heritage as an Armenian-American and her interest in music as documentary to create powerful musical works such as Silent Cranes, composed in 2015 to mark the centennial of the Armenian Genocide.
November 16, 2022
Andrew Laurion, Bioremediation Project coordinator for the Northeast Organic Farming Association, visits Professor Christopher Conz’s class in Global Environmental History to talk about urban farming and food justice in the Springfield, Massachusetts area.
November 22, 2022
Elizabeth Hordge Freeman, associate professor of sociology at University of South Florida, visits Professor Carmen Jarrin’s class on Race, Racism and Anthropology to discuss her book “Second Class Daughters: Informal Adoptions as Modern Slavery in Brazil” and visits the Cultures and Politics of Latin America class to discuss “The Color of Love: Racial Features, Stigma and Racialization in Black Brazilian Families.”
November 30, 2022
Chitja Twala, professor at the University of the Free State, South Africa, visits Professor Christopher Conz’s class on Modern Africa Since 1800 to speak about the African political struggle under Apartheid, especially the activities of the African National Congress.
December 1, 2022
Linford Cunningham, director of prevention services at AIDS Project Worcester, visits Professor Tsitsi Masvawure’s class on HIV/AIDS in Global Perspective to present on “Living with HIV.