Presenters

Afrodesia McCannon

NYU Liberal Studies

Afrodesia McCannon received her PhD from the University of California – Berkeley in Comparative Literature (French, English, German) and has been a Fulbright and NEH fellow.   She has a particular interest in the medieval autobiographical impulse, the global Middle Ages, and the uses of the medieval past. She is on the steering committee of the fellowship of Medievalists of Color and has chaired the Medieval Academy of America’s Mentoring Program Committee and the Inclusivity and Diversity Committee, and is its current delegate to the ACLS.

Cammie Kim Lin

NYU Liberal Studies

Cammie Kim Lin is a Clinical Associate Professor of Writing at NYU Liberal Studies. A recipient of the NYU Martin Luther King, Jr. Faculty Award, she teaches first-year writing, food writing, food studies, and critical service learning. Her research on education and pedagogy has been widely published in scholarly journals and edited volumes. She is also a food writer whose work has been published in the Washington Post, Eater.com, and elsewhere. The cookbook she wrote with her sister, Serious New Cook (Rizzoli, 2022), won a best-cookbook award from the International Association of Culinary Professionals. 

Carley Moore

NYU Liberal Studies

Carley Moore is the author of Panpocalypse, The Not Wives, 16 Pills, and The Stalker Chronicles. Carley’s debut poetry collection Heartless is forthcoming from Indolent Books. She’s a Clinical Professor of Writing and Creative Production at New York University and an Associate at The Institute for Writing and Thinking at Bard College. Carley lives in Brooklyn with her kid and two cats. Follow her on Instagram @fragmentedsky or find her blogging on Substack.

Courtney Hopf

NYU London

Courtney Hopf is Senior Lecturer and Programme Manager for Liberal Studies and Creative Arts at NYU London, where she teaches classes in the Liberal Studies, English and Stern programmes.  Courtney's research focus is Contemporary British Literature and Culture, and pedagogically she is a proponent and active user of the "Reacting to the Past" role-playing pedagogy.

Cristina-Ioana Dragomir

NYU Liberal Studies

Dr. Dragomir's research delves into the interplay between mobility, gender dynamics, and the environment. Prior NYU, she held faculty positions and served as a visiting scholar at Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Queen Mary University of London. She authored two books that delve into Migration/Mobility Studies: 'Power on the Move: Adivasi and Roma Accessing Social Justice,' (2022) and 'Making the Immigrant Soldier: How Race, Ethnicity, Class, and Gender Intersect in the US Military,' (2023). Her work was translated into Spanish, Catalan, Tamil, Kannada, and Hindu, and it was published in large-audience outlets: Al Jazeera, The Hindu, Scroll.in

Dina M Siddiqi

NYU Liberal Studies

Dina M. Siddiqi is Clinical Associate Professor, Global Liberal Studies, New York University.  A cultural anthropologist by training, her research -- grounded in the study of Bangladesh -- joins critical development studies, transnational feminist theory, and the anthropology of labor and Islam.  She has published extensively on the global garment industry, non-state gender justice systems, and the cultural politics of Islam and nationalism.  Her publications are available at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dina-Siddiqi.  She sits on the editorial boards of Contemporary South Asia, Dialectical Anthropology, and the Journal of Bangladesh Studies. She is currently working on a book manuscript entitled Garment Nation: Muslim Women, Industrial Labor, and Transnational Capital in Bangladesh. 

Elizabeth Lee

NYU Liberal Studies

Elizabeth Lee served as a postdoctoral faculty fellow in Liberal Studies at NYU from 2022-2024. Starting AY 24-25, she will be assistant professor of East Asian art history at SUNY New Paltz. Elizabeth specializes in the histories of premodern Korean and Chinese art, with an emphasis on Buddhist visual and material culture. She uses digital tools, such as geographic information systems (GIS) technology, to complement and expand upon traditional art historical methodologies. Her research interests also include the modern and contemporary art of Korea, China, and Japan. 

Emily Tsiang

NYU Shanghai

Emily is an Associate Arts Professor at NYU Shanghai, where she teaches in the Program for Creativity+Innovation and leads the experiential learning studio, City as Classroom. Drawing on her background as an urban planner and experience designer, her research explores innovative pedagogical approaches that integrate the city as both ‘space’ and ‘subject.’ In particular, she looks at how place-based experiences, when integrated with reflective practice, can shape transformational learning experiences. 

Erik Bormanis

NYU Liberal Studies

Erik Bormanis is a Postdoctoral Faculty Fellow in Liberal Studies, teaching in Global Works and Society. His scholarship focuses on the intersection of the history of social and political philosophy and 19th and 20th century continental philosophy, with a specific interest in questions of belonging, property, and cosmopolitanism. His most recent published article is "Streetwalking Beyond the Stoa: Diogenes the Cynic, Maria Lugones, and a Tentative Cosmopolitanism." 

Erin Morrison

NYU Liberal Studies

Erin Morrison is a clinical assistant professor in Liberal Studies at New York University. She has a BA in biology from Amherst College and received her PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Arizona. Erin is an evolutionary biologist studying the mechanisms of diversification of avian carotenoid coloration and the evolution of metabolic networks. Her courses at NYU cover topics in biology, research methods, and the Bridgerton romance series.

Eugenia (Genia) Naro-Maciel

NYU Liberal Studies

Dr. Eugenia (Genia) Naro-Maciel, Clinical Professor and Chair of the Sustainability, Health, and the Environment Concentration in Global Liberal Studies, is a graduate of Yale University (B.S., Cum Laude, Distinction in Biology). She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology from Columbia University, with a Certificate in Environmental Policy. Her research focuses on genetic approaches for aquatic biodiversity and conservation, with environmental justice, conservation, and educational applications. Genia is a committed practitioner of evidence-based teaching and learning strategies in the classroom, and has co-authored numerous educational materials on protected areas, biodiversity conservation, environmental justice, and ecological justice.

Garnet Kindervater

NYU Liberal Studies

Garnet Kindervater is a contemporary critical theorist and Clinical Assistant Professor in Liberal Studies (NYU). His work draws principally from modern continental philosophy, the interrelation of critical, cultural, & political theory, and social scientific research in human security and climate change. He is currently completing a book about the cultural and political implications of imagining future catastrophes. His writing was published or is forthcoming on the problem of “catastrophic thought” and future temporalities; global capitalism and crisis; anthropogenic climate change; and the philosophers Baruch Spinoza and Gilles Deleuze. 

Gerceida Jones

NYU Liberal Studies

Born in Denver, Colorado, I was raised in Caruthersville, Missouri in the 1960’s. I remember the significant influence of my parents and grandparents who molded my sense of moral and civic responsibility. As far back as I can recall, my life has been filled with the understanding that in serving others, one may achieve a personal level of excellence and satisfaction. My passion has been to bring astronomy to underrepresented students who may have an interest in STEM fields. My research interests are neutron stars and the ancient Dogon people of Mali, West Africa.

Heather Masri

NYU Liberal Studies

I received my Ph.D. in English literature from NYU, specializing in 18th century British literature, with a focus on satire, non-fiction prose, and literature and law. My interest in satire and in the ways that literature interacts with society also drew me to science fiction/speculative fiction. The anthology I edited, Science Fiction: Stories and Contexts, includes critical and theoretical works from a variety of disciplines alongside a selection of short stories from the 19th-21st centuries. The theorists who have most influenced me are Bakhtin, Habermas, Baudrillard, and Haraway. 

Heidi E. White

NYU Liberal Studies

Heidi White has a master's degree and a doctorate in philosophy from the New School for Social Research. She also holds a master's degree in humanities, with an emphasis on the history of ideas, from the University of Texas at Dallas. She teaches the “Global Works and Society” sequence and courses on global justice theory at Liberal Studies in New York. She is the co-author of If A, Then B: How the World Discovered Logic, with Michael Shenefelt (Columbia University Press).

Hye Eun Choi

NYU Shanghai

Hye Eun Choi is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Korean Language and Culture at NYU Shanghai. Before joining NYU Shanghai, she was a Korea Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at Columbia University. Choi has taught courses at Columbia, NYU, and William Paterson University as an adjunct faculty member. Her book project, tentatively titled “Inventing Modern Sound Culture in Colonial Korea (1910-1945),” is a multilayered history that traces the birth of the recording industry in colonial Korea, revealing how a new sound culture was formed not only under Japanese cultural hegemony but also in and through the currents of global modernity.

Ifeona Fulani

NYU Liberal Studies

Ifeona Fulani's research interests include Caribbean, African, and Black British literatures and cultures. Her recent scholarly publications include an edited volume of essays, Archipelagos of Sound: Transnational Caribbeanities, Women and Music (University of West Indies Press, 2012) as well as articles published in Atlantic Studies, Caribbean Quarterly, Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies, Small Axe and Anthurium, and a chapter in the three-volume series, Caribbean Literature in Transition, 1800 – 2020 (Cambridge UP, 2020).

Jacqueline Bishop

NYU Liberal Studies

My philosophy is that writing can be taught. It is a skill that can be mastered if engaged in consistently and tenaciously; if given engaging enough prompts as a springboard to ideas. I also believe in teaching writing from the inside out, to take a personal experience and contextualize it to arrive at some larger truth about the self or about some aspect of society. As such, we read widely and variously in my class, essays culled from a variety of sources and on a variety of subjects. Essays that themselves act as models of great writing. From time to time I focus a semester's work around a single theme—such as the use of oral histories or the impact of childhood memories. Often, I have students work on self-generated subjects that are of great importance to themselves. There is a lot of challenging discussion, dissection and examinations in my writing classes.

Jared Simard

NYU Liberal Studies

Jared Simard is a Clinical Assistant Professor of World Cultures, Arts, and Literatures at New York University-Liberal Studies, where he teaches ancient and pre-modern literature and art from a global perspective. He holds a Ph.D. in Classics from The Graduate Center, The City University of New York. His publications have traced the reception of ancient mythology in the art and architecture of New York City combining classics, history, art history, archival studies, and biographical approaches. Subsequently, his research touches upon theories of reception, American studies, and empire, as well as space and material culture.

Jeannine Chandler 

NYU Liberal Studies

Jeannine Chandler is a Clinical Associate Professor of Global Liberal Studies at New York University, where she specializes in the teaching of East Asian cultures and global history. Her research interests focus on the intersections of identity, historical memory, contemporary politics, and popular culture in East Asia. Chandler has published research on the manifestations of Tibetan Buddhist sectarianism in the West, and the rise of self-immolations among Tibetan Buddhist monks. She presented papers at both the first and second iterations of BTS: A Global Interdisciplinary Conference. Her research on BTS reflects her interest in contemporary East Asian relations, and how they have been impacted by nationalism, historical memory and cultural disputes.

Justin Evans

NYU Washington, DC

Justin is the Assistant Director for Academic Affairs at NYU's Washington, D.C. site. He teaches the Global Works and Societies Antiquities and Crossroads courses, and works on nineteenth and twentieth century social and political thought. 

Kevin Bonney

NYU Liberal Studies

Kevin Bonney is Assistant Dean of Faculty Development and Program Advancement and Clinical Associate Professor in Liberal Studies. He earned his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from Northwestern University, where his research focused on Chagas disease. Since then his primary scholarly focus has shifted to biology education research and the scholarship of teaching and learning, and has led to publication of a book and numerous peer-reviewed journal articles.

Lin Chen

NYU Shanghai

Lin Chen is a Clinical Associate Professor at New York University Shanghai where he currently serves as the Area Head of the Writing Program. His primary area of specialization is Chinese-Western comparative poetics. Trained as a literary comparatist, he dedicates his teaching and research to fostering deep cultural understanding between China and the West. In recent years, he has also broadened his research interests to include composition and translation studies. He holds a PhD from the University of Washington, an MA from the University of California, Riverside, and a BA from Fudan University in Shanghai, China.

Marcos L. Martínez

NYU Shanghai

Marcos L. Martínez is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Writing Program, and Faculty Coordinator for the Academic Resources Center at NYU Shanghai. Prior to joining the faculty, he was a lecturer for NYU's Global Liberal Studies program in Washington, DC. He has also been a lecturer at Georgetown University, and served as the Mentor for Faculty Teaching Multilingual Writers with the writing center at George Washington University. His research interests include intersections between creative writing and academia; working with multilingual writers; and queer theory from a transnational perspective.

Marian Ahn Thorpe

NYU Liberal Studies

Marian Ahn Thorpe is a Clinical Assistant Professor in Liberal Studies. She holds a Phd in anthropology from Rutgers University. An environmental and political anthropologist, she studies Indigenous rights and development in Latin America. Drawing on over a decade of fieldwork with Ngäbe collaborators in Panama, her work examines the application of the international Indigenous right of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent/Consultation (FPIC), which holds that Native peoples have the right to participate in development decisions that affect their lands and livelihoods. 

Matt Longabucco

NYU Liberal Studies

Matt Longabucco is a Clinical Professor in Liberal Studies at New York University, where he teaches Writing as well as upper-level courses in Creative Critical Production. Recent publications as an essayist and poet include M/W: An essay on Jean Eustache’s La maman et la putain and the poetry collection Heroic Dose. He co-founded Wendy’s Subway, an independent library and community arts space in Brooklyn. He is a long-time associate of Bard College’s Institute for Writing and Thinking, where he teaches innovative pedagogy to educators. 

Dr. Michael Datcher

NYU Liberal Studies

Dr. Michael Datcher received his B.S. from UC Berkeley and his Ph.D. from UC Riverside in English Literature. Along with children’s book  HARLEM AT FOUR, he is the author of the New York Times Bestseller Raising Fences and the critically-acclaimed Ferguson-area historical novel Americus. His book  Animating Black and Brown Liberation: A Theory of American Literatures was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Datcher has made numerous media appearances, including Oprah, Today Show and Dateline. Dr. Michael Datcher teaches writing at New York University. 

Michael Shenefelt

NYU Liberal Studies

Michael Shenefelt teaches Global Works and Society at Liberal Studies in New York. He is the author of two books, The Questions of Moral Philosophy (Prometheus), and If A, Then B: How the World Discovered Logic, with co-author Heidi White (Columbia University Press).

Nalei Chen

NYU Liberal Studies

Dr. Nalei Chen focuses mainly on early Chinese philosophy and contemporary Anglophone political philosophy. His research uses a comparative approach and aims to show that ancient Chinese ideas are still very much relevant to many contemporary philosophical debates and can make a meaningful contribution to current social and political philosophy. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Utah, his M.A. in Philosophy from Fudan University, and his B.A. in Logic from Sun Yat-sen University. Chen’s appointment at NYU will be his first academic position after obtaining his Ph.D.

Nancy Reale

NYU Liberal Studies

Nancy Reale holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from NYU. Her scholarship and publications are centered primarily on European literature of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance; she has integrated this focus with her interests in music and the visual arts throughout her career in the classroom and in work she has produced for Liberal Studies.  Dr. Reale has taught in Liberal Studies since 1985 (when it was the General Studies Program) and has developed a wide range of classes dealing with the arts, among them freshman Arts and Cultures courses, sophomore seminars, and GLS senior seminars, thesis, and colloquium courses.

Nicoletta Pelufo

NYU Florence

Nicoletta Peluffo, lecturer and Assistant Director for Academics in NYU Florence, received her Ph.D. in Literature and Media:Narrativity and Language from IULM university in Milan. She earned her second level master degree in language teaching from Ca’ Foscari university in Venice and her Ditals certificate from Università per Stranieri in Siena. Her area of interest and research includes comparative literature of XIX and XX centuries, seriality, adaptations and remediations. She teaches Experiential Learning Seminar for students conducting internships.

Peter Diamond

NYU Liberal Studies

Peter Diamond is a Clinical Associate Professor in Liberal Studies at New York University.  Previously (1985-2000) he was Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Graduate Program at the University of Utah.  He is the author of Common Sense and Improvement: Thomas Reid as Social Theorist (Frankfurt, 1998) as well as articles and book chapters on eighteenth-century Anglo-American moral and political philosophy as well as modern political theory.  He holds a B.A. from Georgetown University, an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University.

Philip Kain

NYU Liberal Studies

Philip Kain serves as the Director of Academic Engagement and Experiential Learning for Global Liberal studies. His essays and reviews have appeared in Newsday, The Forward, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, The Houston Chronicle, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other national publications. He has published two series for tweens with Simon & Schuster and was the launch author for HarperCollins/Harlequin’s gay romance line. He writes books for children as PG Kain and commercial fiction as Philip William Stover. His next book, “My Mother’s Ridiculous Rules for Dating (and Ruining My Life)” will be released in October 2024 with Canelo/Hera.

Raymond Ro

NYU Shanghai

Raymond Ro is a professor, engineer, and lawyer. He has been teaching at NYU Shanghai since 2012, when the institution was just a study-away site. His academic and teaching interests include: the intersection of law, business, and technology; management and organizations; marketing; entrepreneurship; leadership; professional responsibility; and comparative intellectual property law. Raymond is also the Shanghai site faculty for Experiential Learning in the Global Liberal Studies program at NYU. Prior to his teaching career, Raymond worked as a biomedical engineer researching cancer detection methods using ultrasound technology. He also worked as a patent attorney in the U.S. with an international law firm, where he litigated and prosecuted patents and counseled clients with their start-up strategies. Additionally, Raymond conducted executive education training courses for private and governmental entities. Raymond enjoys playing sports, learning Chinese, trying unique foods, and watching American football.

Rohan Sikri

NYU Liberal Studies

Rohan Sikri is a comparative philosopher, focusing primarily on ancient Greek and classical Chinese texts. His research interests include topics related to comparative methodology, the broader intersections of philosophy and medicine in antiquity, and on several other themes that highlight the wider cultural contestations that better situate our understanding of philosophical texts. Some of his published work includes essays on philosophical therapy in the works of Plato and early Daoism, classical diagnoses of philosophy as a sickness, and the philosopher's understanding and appraisal of the experience of travel in antiquity. In an ongoing project, he explores conceptions of wonder in the intellectual cultures of early Greece and China.

Sarah Snider

NYU Shanghai

Sarah Snider is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Writing Program and Chair of Creative Writing at NYU Shanghai. She recently returned to Shanghai from residence at the American Academy in Rome’s Visiting Artists and Scholars program, and she spent the earlier part of the Spring 2024 semester as a Global Research Initiative Fellow at NYU Florence. She has presented on pedagogies of academic and creative writing and community-engaged learning at conferences spanning from the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) to NYU Abu Dhabi’s Write Now! International Symposium on Writing Studies & Global Liberal Arts Pedagogies. Sarah’s work in running the NYU Shanghai Literary Reading Series stands alongside her co-organization of creative writing workshops across the NYU Global Network.

Shuang WEN

NYU Shanghai

Shuang Wen is a historian of modern China and the Arab world. Prior to joining NYU Shanghai, Shuang held fellowships at the National University of Singapore and New York University Abu Dhabi. As a native Chinese speaker, she received immersive Arabic-language training from the American University in Cairo where she also obtained an MA degree in Middle East Studies, University of Damascus, and Middlebury College. Shuang earned her PhD from Georgetown University. She specializes in the multilayered interactions and exchanges between China and the Middle East, which comprises agricultural, diplomatic, intellectual, labor, medicinal, and religious affairs.

Statia Cook

NYU Liberal Studies

Statia Luszcz Cook is a Clinical Associate Professor in Liberal Studies teaching history of the Universe, and a Research Associate in the Astrophysics Department at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). Statia observes the atmospheres of planets and moons using state-of-the-art telescopes located around the world and in space. Her research interests include the global circulation and weather on Uranus and Neptune; the interactions between Io's active volcanoes and its tenuous atmosphere; and the influence of cometary impacts on the Solar System's giant planets.  

Susanna Horng

NYU Liberal Studies

Susanna Horng (she/her, pronounced soo-SAN-na HONG) is a Clinical Professor at New York University in Liberal Studies, where she teaches writing and Critical Creative Production (CCP) courses. Her stories and poems have appeared in Bennington Review, Minerva Rising, Global City Review, and The Rumpus, among others. Her work has been supported by residencies at Catwalk Institute and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, as well as fellowships from The New York Foundation for the Arts and The Jerome Foundation. 

Tilottama "Minu" Tharoor

NYU Liberal Studies

Minu Tharoor teaches Arts & Cultures in NYU Liberal Studies Core Program, and Art, Text, Media (ATM) Approaches & Global Women's Rights in Global Liberal Studies. She is completing her book manuscript, The Empire Within: Empire & Women in 19th/20th Century British Domestic Novel.

Timothy Schaffer

NYU Liberal Studies

Timothy Schaffer, Senior Educational Technologist for the Arts & Science Office of Teaching Excellence & Innovation, supports NYU Liberal Studies faculty in instructional design and educational technology capacities. He has worked on a variety of projects with Liberal Studies faculty and students involving digital humanities, podcasting, virtual reality, ArcGIS, StoryMaps, and the Global Image Gallery. He also works with faculty and researchers from throughout NYU on Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) projects.

Tim Tomlinson

NYU Liberal Studies

Tim Tomlinson is a co-founder of New York Writers Workshop and co-author of its popular text, The Portable MFA in Creative Writing. He is also the author of the chapbook Yolanda: An Oral History in Verse, the poetry collection Requiem for the Tree Fort I Set on Fire, and the collection of short fiction, This Is Not Happening to You. His work has been published in Australia, China, India, Singapore, the Philippines, and in many venues in the US, including the anthologies Long Island Noir, and the Brooklyn Poets Anthology. He’s run workshops in poetry and prose at many international locations, including Australia, China, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. He’s a certified yoga instructor, an avid scuba diver, and his past addresses include extended residencies in Shanghai, Manila, London, Florence, New Orleans, Boston, Miami, Andros Island, Bahamas, Manhattan, and Brooklyn, where he currently lives with his wife. He is on the Advisory Board of Asia Pacific Writers & Translators, and Whatabook (India). He’s been teaching in NYU’s Global Liberal Studies since the early 1990s. 

Travis Klingberg

NYU Shanghai

Travis Klingberg is Assistant Professor of Practice in Environmental Studies, and a geographer working across cultural geography, political ecology, and contemporary China. His research focuses on the culture and politics of geographic knowledge, nature and tourism, the rise of "Beautiful China," and ecological placemaking. Klingberg received his MA and PhD from the Department of Geography at the University of Colorado at Boulder, funded in part by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. Prior to joining the NYU Shanghai faculty he was a Luce/ACLS Postdoctoral Fellow during a residency at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.

Yong-Ak (Rafael) Song

NYU Abu Dhabi

Yong-Ak (Rafael) Song is currently an associate professor in the Division of Engineering, New York University in Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) and holds a joint appointment in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, as well as in the Department Biomedical Engineering, Tandon School of Engineering at New York University in Brooklyn, NY. He is also program head of the Bioengineering Program at NYUAD. He has been offering a core course CADT-UH 1033 Bioinspiration at NYU Abu Dhabi since 2018 and is interested in developing bioinspired engineering solutions as one of his research topics.