Semesterly presentation of ongoing research by Miami University contingent and visiting faculty.
Jonathan DeVore is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Anthropology and Latin American, Latino/a, and Caribbean Studies at Miami University. His research is on land rights in Brazil’s post-emancipation period, which is the topic of his current book project, Emancipation Work: Reconstruction and Renewal in the Aftermath of Brazilian Slavery. Jonathan holds a Ph.D. in sociocultural anthropology from the University of Michigan, and has held previous postdoctoral positions at Yale University, the University of Cologne, and the University of Bonn.
Sara Marzioli is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Italian Studies at Miami University. She received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the Pennsylvania State University. Before coming to Miami, she has taught African American, English, and World Literature courses at Guilford College and Bard College. Her research brings into conversation Twentieth-Century African Diasporic and Italian writers and film directors, whose work addresses the intersection of history, narrative, and coloniality in Europe. She has published in African American Review,Atlantic Studies, and Modernism/Modernity. She is at work on a book manuscript titled, The Color of The Archive: Afro-Modernism Between the Atlantic and The Mediterranean.
Bethany Stevens, MA, JD, is the Welling Distinguished Scholar in Disability Studies and a doctoral student in Sociology at Georgia State University specializing in sexuality and the life-course infused with critical disability studies and phenomenological analysis. As a passionate lecturer and workshop facilitator, she has given invited talks internationally with a focus on the politics of pleasure and other intersectional sexual health issues of disabled people. One of her passions, developed while working in the Division of Violence Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is working to train peer educators to prevent sexual violence using protective measures, such as teaching sexual health and bystander intervention. Within her years of teaching at Morehouse school of Medicine (MSM), GSU, San Francisco State University, and Widener University, pedagogy is vibrantly engaged to work to manifest the transformative space of learning. Stevens has dedicated her life to promoting sexual and disability justice through scholarship and advocacy.
