Throughout the academic year, the BUCH staff conducts interviews with BU humanists to better inform the BU community at large about the fascinating scholarship and projects that humanities faculty and students are engaged with.

New Interviews

BU Humanists at Work: Margaret Litvin, Associate Professor of Arabic & Comparative Literature
Margaret Litvin didn’t expect to end up as a professor. She spent her undergraduate years focused on breaking into a different field: journalism. “I realized that we Americans had no idea what was going on in the Middle East,” said Litvin.

Meet the Fellows: Jonathan Klawans, Professor of Religion
Professor of Religion and Jeffrey Henderson Senior Research Fellow Jonathan Klawans digs into Biblical forgeries in his latest project. Learn more about past forgeries and the excuses scholars make for them in this short video.

Meet the Fellows: Ying Gong, PhD Candidate in Linguistics
PhD candidate in Linguistics and Dissertation Fellow Ying Gong shares her work on Ursu and highlights the importance of building reciprocal relationships with communities that speak understudied languages.

BU Humanists at Work: Yoon Sun Yang, Associate Professor of Korean & Comparative Literature
“How do I convince English-speaking readers of the value of the literary works that were once celebrated as innovative but no longer easily satisfy contemporary aesthetic tastes?”

This was the question at the forefront of Yoon Sun Yang’s mind as she took to writing her new book on the colonial domestic novel.

Meet the Fellows: Constanza Robles, PhD Candidate in History of Art & Architecture
History of Art & Architecture PhD candidate and Graduate Dissertation Fellow Constanza Robles shares how the posters and buildings on display at world fairs reveal political goals and teach us more about Pan-Americanism.

Meet the Fellows: Paul Katsafanas, Professor of Philosophy
Professor of Philosophy and Jeffrey Henderson Senior Research Fellow Paul Katsafanas discusses his public-facing work on Nietzsche and how the idea of devotion might offer an alternative way of living in a fractured society in this short video.

BU Humanists at Work: Alyssa Hunziker, Assistant Professor of English
When people in the United States hear the term “Indigenous literature,” they assume a Native American context. For Assistant Professor of English Alyssa Hunziker, Indigenous literary studies reach beyond the United States to the Pacific Islands and Asia, where Hunziker encounters literature and communities similarly impacted by U.S. imperialism.

Meet the Fellows: Holly Wiegand, PhD candidate in English
PhD candidate in English and Dissertation Fellow Holly Wiegand is searching the archives and popular literature for stories from 19th-century female preachers. Her work follows the lives of preachers like Jareena Lee through memoir, testimonials, and representations of the female preacher in fiction.

Meet the Fellows: Alexis Peri, Associate Professor of History
Did you know that the KGB had a beauty pageant in the 1980’s? We didn’t, until we spoke with Associate Professor of Hitory and Jeffrey Henderson Senior Research Fellow Alexis Peri. Peri’s research explore the world of Soviet beauty pageants, Miss KGB, and global competition.

Meet the Fellows: Henry Tonks, PhD candidate in History
Henry Tonks, Graduate Dissertation Fellow and PhD Candidate in History, PhD candidate in History and current BUCH Graduate Dissertation Fellow Henry Tonks discusses his dissertation on the evolution of the Democratic Party in the late 20th-century in this short video. Tonks also ties his research to the 2024 election.

Meet the Fellows: Joanna Davidson, Associate Professor of Anthropology
Joanna Davidson, Jeffrey Henderson Senior Research Fellow and Associate Professor of Anthropology, shares discusses the importance of naming and the advantages of a BUCH Faculty Fellowship in this short video.

BU Humanists at Work: Yuri Corrigan, Associate Professor of Russian & Comparative Literature
Dr. Yuri Corrigan was one of two BU professors to be awarded a highly competitive 2024-2025 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Corrigan discusses his book project, Chekhov’s Ethics: From Anesthetics to Antidotes….