One of the cornerstones of the Humanities for the Public Good PHD will be experiential learning. With the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the University of Iowa Graduate College along with the help of our Graduate Summer Intern Fellows and our internship hosts, we’re asking what the “applied humanities” might look like. Students spend two summer months working with and for a campus or community partner on a thoughtfully designed project. Following an orientation, the students attend several cohort gatherings over the summer to share their experiences. They also respond to prompts and to each other in an online discussion that continues throughout the two months. Together, they discuss what the humanities mean in their workplace, how concepts and methods from their disciplines translate into their workplace, and they are reimagining their own research and writing in their scholarly work in light of their internship experience. We are also deeply grateful for the patient, creative, resourceful mentors in the internship sites who are not only working closely with the students but also teaching and learning with us.
Download the 2020 Internship Report here!
African American Museum of Iowa
Jennifer Miller (Language, Literacy, & Culture), Exhibit Oral History and Community
Jennifer Miller is a second-year doctoral student in the UI College of Education’s Language, Literacy, and Culture program. She has recently been studying critical archival theory, radical empathy, mediatization, and the transformative potential of affective relationships in the context of archival research. During the summer HPG internship program, she hopes to learn new digital and analog approaches for gathering, presenting, and preserving narratives that illuminate different forms of activism embraced by African Americans who are living in Iowa.
Hancher Auditorium
Emily Wieder (French & Italian), Audience Development and Student Engagement
Emily Wieder is a first-year student in the University of Iowa’s French/Francophone Studies MA program, on track to earn her PhD. An aspiring professor of French language and culture, she will use art to broaden students’ perspectives and to demonstrate that the humanities serve everyone, not just an educated elite. This summer, she hopes to implement this belief by connecting undergraduates to Hancher’s enriching performances.
Cody Norling (Music),
Community Engagement
Cody Norling is a PhD student in historical musicology at the University of Iowa, where he studies a broad range of topics related to operatic dissemination, consumption, and reception, and is currently undergoing dissertation research regarding the civic density of operatic cultures in Interwar Chicago. In addition to his academic work, Cody takes noted interest in public arts communication and, in recent years, has held positions with Hancher Auditorium’s “Embracing Complexity” initiative and the Des Moines Symphony’s “Concert Prelude Talks” series. He plans to further this commitment to public programing with this summer’s internship experience.
Iowa Valley Resource Conservation and Development
Matthew Helm (English),
Rural Communities Culture & Culinary Traditions
Matthew Helm is a fourth-year PhD candidate in English studying 20th-21st century American literature with an emphasis on queer literary celebrity and style. He is excited for the opportunity to feature Iowa food culture’s unique place at the table. While he hopes this internship will expand on his research capabilities and his background in food studies, he is also grateful for the chance to develop his interpersonal skills through interviews with members of the community.
Jonathan Lack (Cinematic Arts), Storytelling and the Food System
Jonathan R. Lack is a second-year PhD candidate in the University of Iowa’s Department of Cinematic Arts. He earned his BA and MA summa cum laude from the University of Colorado at Boulder and has written, published, and podcasted on film and media since the age of 10. He specializes in East Asian cinema, with a particular focus on Japanese film and animation, and has written extensively on directors such as Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. His approach aims to study film and media in ways that are uniquely personal, interdisciplinary, and accessible for a wide audience of both scholars and casual viewers.
National Czech & Slovak Museum
Laura Hayes (English),
Education Associate
Laura is a fifth-year doctoral candidate in the UI Department of English, specializing in nineteenth-century literature. Her work focuses on the representation of material bodies and body management in Victorian fiction after cultural advancements in biology, chemistry, and physics. As a researcher and teacher, Laura is excited for the opportunity to learn more about education beyond the college classroom and ways to make histories and narratives accessible to our communities.
Public Space One
Dellyssa Edinboro (Ed Leadership & Policy), Center for Afrofuturist Studies Partnership & Program Development
Dellyssa Edinboro is a fifth-year doctoral student in the College of Education’s Schools, Culture, and Society (SCS) PhD Program at the University of Iowa. She researches African American women’s educational experiences abroad in the 20th century. By working with the Public Space One’s Center for Afrofuturist Studies (CAS), she hopes to explore the educative role of community-engaged creative work.
UI Labor Center
Kassie Baron (English), Women in Trades Network Researcher and Outreach
Kassie just completed her third year in the English PhD program at the University of Iowa. Her research interests include race, nation-building, and women’s labor in the nineteenth century. Kassie hopes to use this internship to begin building connections between the nineteenth century and today, uncovering the enduring and critically important legacy of women’s labor.
Michael Goldberg (Teaching & Learning), Iowa Labor History Oral Project Assistant
Michael Goldberg is a fourth-year PhD student in Language, Literacy and Culture. He is interested in original theater as a way of performing self and performing knowledge, and also how to leverage the power and flexibility of digital writing spaces in the writing and revision process. He has been an active union member and in union leadership since his time as a high school teacher, and he looks forward to combining his passion for labor solidarity and the tools of qualitative research in his work with the UI Labor Center.
uihumanitiesforthepublicgood.com 