The Luckett Paradigm: History, Theory, and Praxis
Sharrell Luckett, English
Situated at the intersection of theatre history, performance theory, and Black studies, Luckett's project is a book titled, The Luckett Paradigm: History, Theory, and Praxis. This book aims to provide a close reading of her acting methodology, her performance activist work generated in the south, and her intersections with Tri-Cities High School, an esteemed suburban African American performing arts institution located in metro-Atlanta, Georgia. “The Luckett Paradigm” is an acting methodology informed by Afrocentricity, ritual, and the work of African American dramatic theorist Freddie Hendricks. The methodology is one of a few contemporary performance techniques rooted in a Black American aesthetic.
Language learning in local immersion contexts
Kara Moranski, Romance and Arabic Languages and Literatures
Although study abroad is widely recognized as a transformative experience for language learners, work and family obligations can greatly restrict access for thousands of would-be study abroad students each year. In her “Language learning in local immersion contexts” research project, Dr. Moranski will conduct a series of studies on Spanish second language development within the University of Cincinnati’s summer Spanish Local Language Immersion Program. This program creates a local immersion context that meaningfully connects students with Cincinnati’s Hispanic community, and early pilot studies have shown linguistic gains in areas similar to those found in traditional short-term study abroad. Portions of this research will also be conducted in collaboration with the newly established Title VI CEDAR Language Resource Center at the University of Cincinnati.
Science and the Public
Angela Potochnik, Philosophy
Responses to the Covid-19 pandemic have been a stark reminder of the need for public engagement with science to promote scientific literacy, strengthen trust in scientific institutions, and usher in science-informed policies and practices. This Taft Center Fellowship project advances theoretical and practical knowledge of public engagement with science, including science communication, formal and informal science education, scientific research conducted with community members, and science policy. One product is a short book, Science and the Public, under contract with Cambridge University Press. Potochnik is also working with collaborators to found a new interdisciplinary book series in public engagement with science and to author the first two books in that series: Public Engagement with Science: Defining the Project (with Melissa Jacquart) and A Guide for Academic Researchers Conducting Science Outreach (with Melissa Jacquart, Amanda Corris, Andrew Evans, Tim Elmo Feiten, and Collin Lucken).
Scientific study of lattice reduction algorithms
Seungki Kim, Mathematical Sciences
The goal of this project is to develop a scientific theory of lattice reduction. Its real-world importance comes mainly from its central position in lattice-based cryptography, which has become the dominant candidate for cryptography in the coming era of quantum computers, in which much of the current system for ensuring secure electronic communications will be rendered useless. However, that the behavior of lattice reduction algorithms is hardly understood, and is even taken for granted to behave according to common beliefs, poses a potential threat to lattice-based cryptography as a whole. My project proposes to utilize sophisticated theories in mathematics and physics to confront this problem with scientific principles.
Distemporality in the Global Machine: How Chinese
factory workers construe time as the felt experience of globalization
Zhuo Ban, School of Communication, Film, and Media Studies
Scholars of globalization have long argued that a defining feature of globalization is a disjuncture in one’s experience of space-time. My project will explore the undertheorized problematic of time and distemporality (disjunctures in the felt experiences of time) in the context of migrant labor in China. Closer analysis of the discursive field reveals that the time-space dialectic generates some of the most pointed contradictions about the migrant labor experience. In the crudest form, this contradiction can be summarized as a labor regime that allows workers to move about, but not move on—spatial mobility coupled with temporal stagnation. Theorizing the temporal aspect of migrant worker discourse continues my research trajectory of studying migrant labor as a human condition and a social process.