Dean, School of Humanities
Andrew W. Mellon Professor of History
We start this term with the hope that you enjoyed some restorative time over the holidays for curiosity and creativity, which is much needed in these times.
As we look ahead to the changes and challenges that 2026 may bring, we can also take a moment to celebrate all we’ve achieved together. Among these are the university’s continued investments in the School of Humanities and Arts, in our new faculty and in the opening of the extraordinary Sarofim Hall. We celebrate our ability to retain faculty in the face of external recruitments and to sustain the strong support we continue to provide for faculty research in both the critical and creative arenas of scholarship. We are proud of our exceptional teachers, including the numerous humanities and arts recipients of teaching awards. And we are grateful to the faculty who have carried leadership roles in the school during these challenging years.
Our enrollments are holding steady, our interdisciplinary programs and disciplinary majors are thriving, and we continue to hire stellar and diverse faculty whose new ideas and initiatives enrich and expand the scope of our research and teaching. With five faculty searches currently underway — in fields as diverse as AI and Tech Ethics; Arts and Media Studies; English and Creative Writing; Narrative Medicine/Medical Humanities; and Philosophy of Law — our upward trajectory continues, defying national humanities trends.
Featured News
'State of the Arts'
Sarofim Hall and our new name — the School of Humanities and Arts — are two parts of the same story: Rice embracing the arts as both discipline and engine of discovery. See Rice Magazine Cover Story >
‘Arts at the Heart of Rice’
President Reginald DesRoches: “The name change reflects a broader vision — one that recognizes how deeply intertwined the arts and humanities are in fostering human understanding, expression and progress — crucial to our academic future.” See Rice Magazine President's Note >
New MFA degree: a milestone, years in the making
A three-year graduate program that welcomes its first cohort in fall 2026, the Creative Writing MFA is one exciting outcome of new faculty hires and new ambitions fostered within and among the Creative Writing faculty in the Department of English and Creative Writing. “We were growing a critical mass of faculty who would be a draw for a program like this,” says Lacy M. Johnson, Bruce and Elizabeth Dunlevie Associate Professor of Creative Writing. “We were asking what kind of program we would have wanted to attend if we could go back as the writers we are now and start again, and this was the result of those conversations.” See Rice News Story >
‘More than words: The degree that does it all’
At Rice, Miles Kruppa ’16 learned to move between close reading and broad analysis, something he now does daily as a reporter at The Information covering artificial intelligence. “I see in a very visceral way how our information environment is changing rapidly. Being an English major prepares you for that kind of world.” See Rice News Video and Story >
Partnership inspires high schoolers ‘to dream big’
Civic Humanist, the school’s program that extends the reach of Rice to high schools across Houston and beyond, welcomed students from San Antonio’s International School of the Americas for a campus visit this fall. “The students and teachers were blown away by Sarofim Hall,” says Fay Yarbrough ’97, Senior Associate Dean and William Gaines Twyman Professor of History. “They couldn’t believe that they might have the chance to create art in that building one day. And that’s the power of the Civic Humanist Program — it lets students imagine themselves at Rice, it lets them see what Rice has to offer and it encourages them to dream big.
Courses invite students to explore big questions
What distinguishes Big Questions courses is their ability to transcend boundaries, fostering an interdisciplinary exploration of complex themes. “Taught by some of our most passionate and imaginative teachers, our Big Questions courses invite all Rice students to grapple with questions that are important in our contemporary moment, questions that bring with them a sense of urgency and need to be addressed,” says Nicole Waligora-Davis, Associate Dean and Alan Dugald McKillop Associate Professor of English.
This semester, Luis Duno-Gottberg, Lee Hage Jamail Professor of Latin American Studies, examines “What is a Natural Disaster?” and Valentin Duquet, a lecturer in French and Francophone Studies, is exploring “What is Justice?”
Up next semester: “Can You Take a Joke?: The How and Why of Political Humor,” taught by Michael Dango, associate professor of English and director of the Program in Media Studies, and Carly Thomsen, associate professor of English; and “What is a Border? And Who Crosses It?”, led by Tabea Linhard, Joseph and Joanna Nazro Mullen Professor in Humanities in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages, Literatures and Cultures.
Niche ranks programs among nation’s best
Five of our areas of study have been ranked among the nation’s best in the latest report from Niche, which relies on U.S. Department of Education data and analysis of more than 1,000 universities and is the market leader in connecting colleges and schools with students and families. Art #2; Religion #6; English #11; History #20; Philosophy #20
RESEARCH EXCELLENCE
Conferences & Workshops
Some of the best soccer players in the world are coming to Houston this summer. As the world and Houston prepare for the World Cup, Rice is busy making preparations of its own. “The World at Play” — a Feb. 6-7 conference hosted by Jacqueline Couti, Laurence H. Favrot Professor and chair of the Department of Modern and Classical Languages, Literatures and Cultures, and Caroline Fache, associate professor of French and Francophone Studies — brings together scholars, practitioners, players and policymakers to explore soccer’s potential as a site of structural inequity and transformative repair, and how it functions as a transnational force, influencing economic trends, political relations, social dynamics and technological advancements.
Hundreds of scholars convened for a conference co-organized by W. Caleb McDaniel, the Mary Gibbs Jones Professor of Humanities and Professor of History, that explored how legacies of slavery and segregation shaped schools founded after abolition, including during the “Second Founding” of Reconstruction. The participants considered the roles that universities have played in struggles in the aftermath of slavery and segregation, and possible future actions. See Rice News Video and Story >
This year’s Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present conference transformed Rice and Houston itself into a living gallery of collaboration. More than 500 scholars, artists and curators filled lecture halls and galleries across campus and across town. “This seems like the perfect institution to host ASAP because of ASAP’s commitment to the intersection of the critical and creative,” says Michael Dango, associate professor of English and director of the Program in Media Studies. The conference was co-chaired by Dango and Hayley O’Malley, assistant professor of Art History, with support from Art History assistant professor Olivia K. Young and graduate student Tara Oluwafemi. See Rice News Video and Story >
Publications & Exhibitions
As co-chairs of Rice’s Task Force on Slavery, Segregation and Racial Injustice, historians Alexander X. Byrd ’90 and W. Caleb McDaniel traced the university’s history from its foundation through the tumultuous process of desegregation. What resulted was Slavery, Segregation, and the Second Founding of Rice University, a publication chronicling their findings and the university’s fundamental and ongoing process of transformation. See Rice Magazine Story >
G. Daniel Cohen, Samuel W. and Goldye Marian Spain Associate Professor of History, has published a new book, Good Jews: Philosemitism in Europe After the Holocaust, in which he explores the concept of philosemitism — an ostensibly positive regard or admiration for Jewish people and culture — in nuanced terms.
Jacqueline Couti, Laurence H. Favrot Professor and chair of the Department of Modern and Classical Languages, Literatures and Cultures, edited with Anny-Dominique the collective volume, Curtius Women, Theory, Praxis, and Performativities: Transoceanic Entanglements in Francophone Settings.
Andrew Kraebel, associate professor of English, has published a critical edition and translation of one of the last Latin works of the medieval English mystic Richard Rolle, Postille super novem lectiones mortuorum or Glosses on the Nine Lessons of the Dead.
Caroline Levander, Carlson Professor in the Humanities, professor in English and Rice’s vice president for Global Strategy, has published a new book, Invent Ed: How an American Tradition of Innovation Can Transform College Today, in which she draws on America’s history of invention from Benjamin Franklin to Steve Jobs and explores how universities can rediscover their experimental roots to better prepare students for the future.
W. Caleb McDaniel, Mary Gibbs Jones Professor of Humanities and Professor of History, has been named editor of the Journal of Southern History, succeeding Randal Hall, William P. Hobby Professor of American History, who guided the publication for more than a decade. McDaniel sees his role as an opportunity to deepen the journal’s commitment to evidence-based scholarship at a time when careful historical work is increasingly essential. “For scholars in the humanities, professional journals like this one are as vital to the university’s research mission as laboratories in the sciences. The rewards are immense, and I believe they contribute directly to Rice’s commitment to bettering our world.” See Rice News Story >
Nana Osei-Opare, assistant professor of History and a Center for African and African American Studies affiliated faculty, has published his first book, Socialist De-Colony: Black and Soviet Entanglements in Ghana’s Cold War, in which he shows how race and Ghana-Soviet spaces influenced, enabled and disrupted Ghana’s transformational socialist, Cold War and decolonization projects to achieve Black freedom.
Anthony Pinn, Agnes Cullen Arnold Distinguished Professor of the Humanities and Professor of Religion, has published several books this year, including My Jams: Reflections on the Relationship between Music and Religion; and the edited volumes Conversations on Humanity and Creativity; Identity Formation within Historically Black Colleges and Universities; and ‘Saving’ Education: Religion and/in Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
Sindhu Thirumalaisamy, assistant professor of Art, developed concrete stories, an immersive art exhibit at Aurora Picture Show that incorporated moving images, sounds and writings. The work explored the “set and forget” logic of hyper-development in wetland regions of both the U.S. Gulf Coast and Southern India.
Geoff Winningham, Lynette S. Autrey Professor in the Humanities in the Department of Art, has a retrospective show of 218 of his photographs on view in the galleries of the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University. “Discoveries: Photographs of Texas and Mexico, 1970-2024” is on view through July.
Harvey Yunis, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages, Literatures and Cultures, edited with Hayden Pelliccia and Charles Brittain the book, The Soldier's Choice: City and Soul in the Life of Classical Athens.
FACULTY SPOTLIGHT
‘A Golden Anniversary’
When Andrea Bajani won Italy’s premiere literary prize — the Premio Strega — for his novel L’Anniversario (The Anniversary), he didn’t just make headlines — he sparked a national conversation.
“I hit a taboo talking about families and estrangement,” he says. In the months since his win, Bajani, professor in the practice and international writer-in-residence in the Department of English and Creative Writing, has been on a whirlwind book tour across Europe and South America, with translations planned in nearly 30 countries. An English edition arrives this year. See Rice Magazine Story >
‘Rice duo reimagining Virgil’s Aeneid’
A seven-year literary odyssey has come to fruition for Scott McGill, Deedee McMurtry Professor in Humanities, and Susannah Wright ’18, assistant professor of Modern and Classical Languages, Literatures and Cultures, with the release of their translation of Virgil’s The Aeneid.
The project originated when Wright was a Rice undergraduate, translating lines as part of her senior thesis with McGill as her advisor. They discovered a shared love for Virgil’s Latin epic and decided to continue working on the translation despite Wright’s departure to Harvard, where she earned a doctorate in classical philology. The collaborators spent countless hours going through the poem’s 10,000 lines to produce its first collaborative English translation. See Rice News Story >
‘Religion happens everywhere’: Connecting faith, environment, ethics of energy
A scholar of religion, the environment and the cultural study of science, Judith Ellen Brunton looks at how people’s worldviews — religious or otherwise — influence what they believe the natural world is for and how they think it should be used.
“I grew up in Calgary, where oil is everywhere — in the economy, the skyline and even the stories people tell about themselves,” Brunton says. “What fascinated me was how oil wasn’t just a resource. It was a moral landscape, a way people tested themselves and their communities against an idea of what a good life should be.” See Rice News Story >
Space Humanities in Space City
With seed funding from Rice’s Office of the Vice President for Research, Alexander Regier, William Faulkner Professor of English and chair of the Department of English and Creative Writing, and David Alexander, director of the Rice Space Institute and professor of Physics and Astronomy in the Wiess School of Natural Sciences, are launching Space Humanities.
The interdisciplinary initiative aims to generate broad awareness of the influence of space exploration on human creative thought and vice versa; demonstrate the inter-relatedness between the fields of science, engineering, humanities, social science, business and policy; stimulate discussion about what the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe means for life on Earth; and bring together diverse points of view and expertise to consider the human ramifications of exploring the universe.
STUDENT SPOTLIGHT
Maya Harpavat ’26
Maya Harpavat, who is majoring in English and Health Sciences and minoring in Medical Humanities, conducted research in Rajasthan, India, to understand how maternal and child nutrition is shaped not just by food access but by culture, education and health care systems. Her experience was made possible in part by English and Creative Writing’s Minter Summer Scholars Program.
“This project showed me that research can go beyond data — it can empower communities and change lives. That’s the kind of medicine I want to practice,” says the Moody Humanities Research Fellow and aspiring physician. See Rice News Story >
Alysa Bijl-Spiro ’26
With fellowship support from the departments of English and Creative Writing and Modern and Classical Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Moody Humanities Research Fellow Alysa Bijl-Spiro ’26, traveled to Grenoble, France, to immerse herself in language studies and continue a literary translation of “The Myth of Sisyphus” she began at Rice.
“You often hear that studying abroad is transformative. It might sound cliché, but after living, learning and writing in France for four weeks, I can’t help but agree.” See Admissions Office Blog >
Jahnavi Mahajan ’26
Jahnavi Mahajan’s senior research thesis sits at the intersection of her two majors, computer science and philosophy. She’s questioning whether artificial intelligence poses a threat to human creativity. Mahajan’s approach, says her advisor, Philosophy chair Robert Howell, has been to focus not on definitions of creativity but on why humans need it in the first place. “Instead of focusing upon something that’s just arbitrarily set, she’s looking at what we value in human creativity and then asking whether or not that sort of thing is what we can get from artificial intelligence. She’s good at seeing how creativity ties into things like moral psychology and ethics.” See Rice Thresher Story >
IN REMEMBRANCE
Ira Dempsey Gruber
Ira Dempsey Gruber, whose scholarship on the American Revolution reshaped understanding of military and political life in the 18th century and whose devotion to Rice University spanned nearly six decades, passed away in September. The Harris Masterson Jr. Professor Emeritus of History was 91. His scholarship included Books and the British Army in the Age of the American Revolution, which examined the texts that shaped officers’ thinking during the conflict, and The Howe Brothers and the American Revolution, a close study of British military failure. His work earned him the Edwin H. Simmons Award from the Society for Military History in 1998 and the organization’s Samuel Eliot Morison Prize for lifetime achievement in 2013. See Rice News Story >
PHILANTHROPIC GIVING
Rice establishes endowed professorship in Jain studies
A partnership between Rice and the Federation of Jain Associations in North America has established the Tirthankar Shantinath Professorship in Jain Studies, an endowed position in the School of Humanities and Arts, in a department to be determined. The future scholar appointed to the professorship will contribute to Rice’s interdisciplinary teaching and research mission, engaging with faculty and students across fields such as religion, philosophy, ethics, history and Asian studies. See Rice News Story >
FACULTY LEADERSHIP
We extend our gratitude to Randal Hall, William P. Hobby Professor of American History, for serving as interim director of both the Center for Environmental Studies and Program in Environmental Studies. We welcome Joseph Campana, William Shakespeare Professor of English, back as the center’s director as of Jan. 1, and Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, associate professor in the Department of English and Creative Writing, as director of the program.
We thank Emily Houlik-Ritchey for her service as the Center for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality’s Faculty Associate Director and welcome Tabea Linhard, Joseph and Joanna Nazro Mullen Professor in Humanities, who assumed this role July 1.
Lacy M. Johnson, Bruce and Elizabeth Dunlevie Associate Professor of Creative Writing, has been named Director of Graduate Studies in Creative Writing in the Department of English and Creative Writing as of Nov. 1.
FACULTY PROMOTIONS
Shih-shan Susan Huang has been appointed the T.T. and W.F. Chao Professor in the Department of Transnational Asian Studies.
Margarita Castromán Soto has been named the Allison Sarofim Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of English and Creative Writing for a period of two years (July 1, 2025-June 30, 2027).
UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT RECOGNITION
Max Scholl, a double major in English and Anthropology, and Hongtao Hu, who is studying English and Operations Research, have been selected as members of the National Humanities Center’s National Humanities Leadership Council.
GRADUATE STUDENT RECOGNITION
Morgan Bettin-Coleman, a PhD candidate in the Department of History, won the Sara Jackson Graduate Student Award from the Western Historical Association.
Bohan Zhang, a PhD candidate in the Department of History, has received the Michael J. Hogan Foreign Language Fellowship from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. Zhang will use the fellowship to study Hawaiian language for use in his dissertation research.
ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT
‘Not Mincing Words’
Evan Mintz ’08, who majored in History, engages in political debate online with keen insights, a sharp wit and plenty of hometown pride in his role as the Houston Chronicle’s opinion editor. See Rice Magazine Story >
EVENTS SPOTLIGHT
At Campbell Lectures, journalist, historian offers clear-eyed view of America’s democratic crossroads
Jelani Cobb, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism and the Henry R. Luce Professor at Columbia University, and a Peabody Award-winning journalist and long-time writer at The New Yorker, delivered our school’s Campbell Lectures in November, offering a look at the forces reshaping American democracy. Across both nights, he blended the precision of a historian with the urgency of a journalist, walking audiences through the unresolved conflicts at the nation’s founding, the demographic shifts driving today’s political anxieties, and the long arc of race and immigration in shaping national identity. See Rice News Story >
UPCOMING EVENTS
School of Humanities and Arts Lightning Talks
Thursday, Jan. 22, 12 p.m.
Farnsworth Pavilion, Rice Memorial Center
Speakers:
- Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, associate professor, Department of English and Creative Writing; director, Program in Environmental Studies
- Rebecca Potts, Humanities Research Center postdoctoral associate
- Eziaku Nwokocha, assistant professor, Department of Religion
- Philip Mogen, lecturer, Department of History
Organized by the Dean’s Office, these talks offer an opportunity for the School of Humanities and Arts community to hear from new faculty and postdoctoral fellows about their research and creative work.
Art History’s Katherine Tsanoff Brown Lecture Series
Monday, Jan. 26, 5:30 p.m.
Monday, March 9, 5:30 p.m.
Thursday, April 9, 5:30 p.m.
Speakers:
- Alicia Caticha, Professor of Art History, Northwestern University
- William B. Wallace, Professor of Art History, Washington University, St. Louis
- Lauren R. Cannady, Assistant Professor of Art History and Humanities, University of Houston, Clear Lake
Organized by the Department of Art History, this lecture series is made possible through the support of The Katherine Brown Fund.
School of Humanities and Arts Kazimi Lecture in Shi’i Studies
Thursday, Feb. 5, 7 p.m.
Hudspeth Auditorium, Anderson-Clarke Center
“The Shi’a Muslim Mandate for Peace”
Speaker:
- Juan Cole, Richard P. Mitchell Distinguished University Professor of History, University of Michigan
Organized by the School of Humanities and Arts Dean's Office, the Kazimi Lecture in Shi'i Studies is made possible through a gift from the children of Syed Safdar and Samina Kazimi.
History’s Kalb Lecture
Monday, Feb. 23, 5:30 p.m.
O’Connor Building for Engineering and Science, Room 510
“Computers in the Clinic: A Pre-History of the Chatbot”
Speaker:
- Nancy J. Tomes, SUNY Distinguished Professor of History, Stony Brook University of New York
Organized by the Department of History, this lecture series is made possible through a gift from the family of Ervin Frederick Kalb, Class of 1916.
Humanities NOW: A Conversation with Leslie Hewitt
Monday, March 9, 12 p.m.
Kraft Hall 130
“Radical Art: Abstraction and Black Life”
Speaker:
- Leslie Hewitt, Associate Professor, Department of Art
Organized by the School of Humanities and Arts Dean’s Office, Humanities NOW conversations are open to all Rice students, faculty and staff, and the larger Houston community.
Women’s History Month Lecture
Thursday, March 12, 4 p.m.
Farnsworth Pavilion, Rice Memorial Center
Speaker:
- Antoinette Burton, Maybelle Leland Swanlund Endowed Professor of History and Director, Humanities Research Institute, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Sponsors: Department of History and Center for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality
Humanities Hangouts & Fall 2026 Course Previews
Tuesday, March 24, 12 p.m.
Lee and Joe Jamail Courtyard (Humanities Building courtyard)
Wednesday, March 25, 12 p.m.
Martel Hall
Humanities and Arts Festival
Grand Hall and Farnsworth Pavilion, Rice Memorial Center
Medical Humanities
Monday, April 13
School of Humanities and Arts
Tuesday, April 14
Marian Fox Martel Distinguished Lecture in Gender and Science
Monday, April 13, 6 p.m.
Speaker:
- Robin Wall Kimmerer, Distinguished Teaching Professor, Department of Environmental Biology; Director, Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, State University of New York
Organized by Center for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality in collaboration with Department of History, Center for Environmental Studies and Office of Sustainability.
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