Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellows

John Muse

John was Haverford College's Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow for 2007-09 and taught courses listed in Fine Arts, Comparative Literature, Philosophy, and Independent College Programs. In 2006 he received a Ph.D. in Rhetoric from U.C. Berkeley. His dissertation, The Rhetorical Afterlife of Photographic Evidence: Roland Barthes, Avital Ronell, Roni Horn, co-chaired by Judith Butler and Kaja Silverman, analyzes Barthes' numerous writings on photography, an artwork by Horn entitled "Another Water (the River Thames, for Example)," and an essay by Ronell on the videotaped beating of Rodney King, "TraumaTV: Twelve Steps Beyond the Pleasure Principle." Muse shows how these works use photographs to promulgate a crisis of the evident.

His single-channel videotapes and multi-media installations have been exhibited throughout the United States and Europe. In 2003 New Langton Arts in San Francisco staged a mid-career retrospective of the installation works that he and frequent collaborator Jeanne C. Finley have created. In 2001 Muse and Finley received a Rockefeller Foundation Media Arts Fellowship for their experimental documentary project, Age of Consent. In 1999 they received a Creative Capital Foundation Award. In 1995 they received Artist in Residence fellowships from the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. The Patricia Sweetow Gallery in San Francisco represents his installation works, and the Video Data Bank distributes his single-channel works. Visit Finley+Muse for more information.

John taught "Beauty: Rhetoric, Aesthetics, Philosophy" in Fall, 2008; his course for the spring, 2009 was "The Theory and Practice of Conceptual Art." John's 2009 Mellon Symposium, "among friends," was a week-long artist residency program. To check up on the project, visit among friends.

John Muse will remain at Haverford during the 09-10 academic year as Visiting Assistant Professor.. In Fall 2009, he will teach "Topics in Rhetorical Theory: Roland Barthes and the Image" for Independent College Programs, crosslisted in Fine Arts and Comparative Literature. He will also mount an exhibit with his frequent collaborator Jeanne C. Finley as part of the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery's 2009-10 season of exhibits, October 23 – December 11, 2009. In Spring 2010, John will teach "The Theory and Practice of Conceptual Art" for Independent College Programs, crosslisted in Fine Arts, and "The Language of Argument" in the Writing Program.

Michael Booth

Michael was HHC's Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow for 2006-08. Professor Booth came to Haverford from Boston University, where he was Assistant Professor of Humanities; he has also taught at Brandeis and Georgetown Universities. His doctoral work focused on the relationships between science and language, and between science and literature, during the Early Modern period. In his second year, Michael organized "Shakespeare and the Blending Mind," an interdisciplinary symposium considering Shakespeare's poetic and dramatic artistry from the perspective of "conceptual blending," the mind's ability to create things by tactics of combination ranging from metaphor to theatrical illusion. Presenters included the expositors of conceptual blending theory Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner, as well as seven other visiting scholars.

Jill Stauffer

Jill joined the Humanities Center as Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow for 2005-07 in the Philosophy Department. She came to Haverford from a position as Visiting Assistant Professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought at Amherst College. She received her Ph.D. in Rhetoric in 2003 from the University of California at Berkeley with a dissertation entitled "This Weakness is Needed: An Intervention in Social Contract Theory." Her research and teaching interests include modern and contemporary political and legal theory, ethics, continental philosophy, liberalism and rights, theories of justice, international human rights law, and social contract theory. For 2005-06, Stauffer taught a social and political philosophy course, "Politics and the Passions" in the fall, and "This Weakness is Needed," a course on the work of French-Jewish-Lithuanian thinker of ethics, Emmanuel Levinas, in the spring semester. She participated in the Faculty Seminar "Representations of Political Violence and Terrorism" led by Professor Raji Mohan of the English Department. During her second year, Jill convened "Seeing Justice Done: Interrogating the Margins of Law," her Mellon Symposium focusing on law's limits and possibilities, bringing together thinkers across disciplines to consider theoretical and practical issues in contemporary law, justice, and politics.

Marianne Tettlebaum

Marianne joined the Humanities Center as Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow for 2004-06, with a joint appointment as Visiting Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Music. She received her Ph.D. in music from Cornell University with a dissertation titled, "Kant's Noisy Neighbors: The Experience of Music and Community in the Critique of Judgment." In addition to Mozart, Kant, and music aesthetics, her research interests include the culture of eighteenth-century Vienna, North German Pietism and the work of Johann Gottfried Herder and Johann Friedrich Reichardt, and the aesthetics and philosophy of Theodor Adorno. In addition to participating in the 2004-05 Humanities Center's Faculty Seminar, "Music-Text-Performance," she taught a 200-level course, "Music and the 'Origin of Language' in the Eighteenth Century," in the fall and a 300-level course, "Art and Aesthetic Theory: The Model of Theodor Adorno," in the spring. During her time at Haverford, she also founded the Center's Dialogues on Art program. Her Mellon Symposium was entitled "Art on the Edge: Aesthetic Encounters at the Limits of Representation," asymposium on aesthetics and the relationship of the arts and humanities at the college level. Among the questions explored were: What is the role of art in a humanistic education? What role do the humanities play in the study of art? The inquiry was situated at the intersection of the arts and the humanities within colleges and universities in North America, in particular against the backdrop of a rising interest in interdisciplinary programs of study as well as the foundation and development of "Humanities Centers," such as Haverford's Hurford Humanities Center itself.

Yiman Wang

Yiman joined the Humanities Center as Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow for 2003-05, with a joint appointment as Visiting Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and East Asian Studies. After education in her native China, including her B.A in Anglo-American Literature from Nanjing University and her M.A. in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory from Peking University, Yiman worked in the Chinese media industry, specializing in film animation technology. Combining this background in literature and media studies, Yiman received the Ph.D. in May, 2003 from Duke University's Literature Program, with a specialization in Film and Video. Her dissertation focuses on the cultural politics of transregional and transnational image translation, with particular scrutiny paid to cinematic exchange between China and the West. Yiman participated in the Faculty Seminar on Translation led by Deborah Roberts.

Jennifer Patico

Jennifer joined the Humanities Center as Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in July, 2002, with a joint appointment as Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology. After earning her B.A. magna cum laude in Anthropology and Russian Studies at Williams College and spending time in Russia through the postgraduate program of the American Council of Teachers of Russian, Jennifer proceeded to NYU's Department of Anthropology, where she completed her Ph.D. in 2001. Based on ethnographic research among public school teachers in St. Petersburg, Jennifer's dissertation examines changing ideas of value and identity in post-Soviet civil society. Jennifer participated in the Faculty Humanities Seminar directed by Gus Stadler ("Culture, Value, Cultural Value"), and taught a 200-level course first term called "Culture in the Global Economy" and a 300-level course in the spring on "Theories of Consumption and Material Culture." Jennifer taught during her second year a 200-level course in the fall on "Anthropology of Postsocialism: Russia and East Europe," while in the spring her 300-level course, "Love and the Market: Antropological Explorations in Gender, Economy, and Morality" initiated the program's Mellon Fellows Symposium Course format, culminating in the conference on "Cultures of Capitalism" that took place at Haverford April 23-34, 2004.

Claudia Milian

Claudia, Fellow in Latino/a Studies from 2001-03, received a B.A. in American Studies from Hampshire and the Ph.D. in American Civilization from Brown. Claudia has served in editorial capacities for a number of journals and projects, including the Radical Philosophy Review, ((ñ)) Magazine, and The International Dictionary of Women's Biography, and was consultant to the Rhode Island Committee for the Humanities. Her research interests include Latino, Latina, and African-American literatures and cultural studies; Central American and Caribbean literatures; New World postcolonial studies; and critical race theory. While at Haverford, Claudia taught courses on Latino/a Cultural Productions Since the 1960s, Borderlands and Double Consciousness in the Americas, Central America in the U.S. Neocolonial Imaginary, and African-American, Latina, and Latino Autobiography and Memoir.

Linda Schlossberg

Linda, Fellow in Queer/Gender Studies from 2000-01, received a B.A. from Brandeis in English and Women's Studies, and a Ph.D. from Harvard in English and American Literature. Linda served on the faculty and as Assistant Director of Harvard's Women's Studies Program before coming to Haverford, and was Co-Coordinator of the Lesbian and Gay Studies Seminar at Harvard's Center for Literary and Cultural Studies. Her research interests include Victorian and Edwardian literature and culture, gay and lesbian studies, women's studies, histories of the body, and critical race theory. While at Haverford, Linda taught courses on The Queer Novel and Transgender Studies.

Rebekah Kowal

Rebekah Kowal, Fellow in Performance Studies from 1999-2001, received a B.A. at Barnard College in English with a minor in Dance, and a Ph.D. in American Studies from NYU. Rebekah studied ballet in New York City with Nanette Charisse, Cindi Green, and Zvi Gotheiner and modern at the Merce Cunningham Studio, and while in New York performed with Bryan Hayes, Pat Cremmins, Molly Rabinowitz, and Heidi Henderson. Her research interests include 19th and 20th century American dance and cultural history, the theatricality of everyday life, the avant-garde, leisure and work, and world dance. While at Haverford, Rebekah taught courses in American Studies, Performance Studies, Third World Dance, and Urban Culture, and hosted a symposium on Native American Culture.