The Textile Studies Graduate Research Cluster Written by Kaitlyn Boulding What is a textile? Anything made of fibers that are connected through processes like weaving, knitting, or knotting. Textiles can be clothing and household goods, rugs, tents, and sometimes even houses. You are wearing them now. Maybe you are sitting on them or looking at them…

by Madison Snider, Simpson Center 2021–2022 Writer in Residence “What if abolition isn’t a shattering thing, not a crashing thing, not a wrecking ball event? What if abolition is something that sprouts out of the wet places in our eyes, the broken places in our skin, the waiting places in…

A look at the Simpson Center’s Next Generation Humanities PhD Special Initiative By Rachel Arteaga In 2016, the National Endowment for the Humanities announced a new program directed at change in doctoral education. The projects to be funded by Next Generation Humanities PhD grants would bring humanities PhD programs into…

UW Professor of Communication Ralina Joseph Is Teaching People to Talk About Race Across Generational and Racial Lines — By Denise Grollmus On the night after the 2016 presidential election, fifty students and alumni gathered in the Samuel E. Kelly Ethnic Cultural Center Theater. The mood was funereal as everyone took their seats and waited for Professor of Communication Ralina Joseph to get them started. For the past month…

On the eve of the Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies’ first year, we take a look back at how faculty and graduate students have been working together through the Simpson Center to develop AIIS graduate studies, along with pathways and support networks for Native students to and at…

Over the past decade, UW Professor of English Gillian Harkins has facilitated a number of projects that center currently and formerly incarcerated people while collaborating with various groups to identify and develop pathways from inside prison to college campuses. By Denise Grollmus When Gillian Harkins first started volunteering with University…

Students expose layers hidden beneath the city’s staggering wealth, using “dark tourism” to find reasons for protest and celebration — sometimes both at once.

Anthropologist Darren Byler chronicles artistic culture in Northwest China amid a massive security crackdown. By Jonathan Hiskes In the last three months, University of Washington anthropology student Darren Byler has spoken about his research to AI developers at Google, business leaders at the Washington State China Relations Council, and journalists at the Foreign…

Anthropologist Danny Hoffman photographs urban forms to show how our lives are shaped by the spaces we inhabit. By Jonathan Hiskes University of Washington anthropologist Danny Hoffman stood outside the Hotel Africa on the outskirts of Monrovia, Liberia. Before the nation’s fourteen-year civil war, West African elite and global investors gathered at the…