Reimagining the PhD Cohort

Reimagining the PhD Big Image

In July 2015, the Simpson Center launched Reimagining the Humanities PhD and Reaching New Publics with the generous support of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The conviction animating this initiative was that doctoral education, especially at a public university, must be guided by a capacious vision of its fundamental purpose: to contribute to the public good. From 2015-2021, the program prepared UW doctoral students in the humanities for this task by meaningfully connecting them to the diverse, access-oriented institutions of higher education in the Seattle District community colleges, and by supporting the development of both doctoral students’ public projects and publicly engaged graduate seminars taught by UW faculty in the humanities. Find out more about our programming below.

2021 - 2022 Scholars

A black and white close up portrait of Paul Tubig wearing glasses.
Assistant Professor
Philosophy, Georgia Southern University
Anna Bates stands in front of plants and wears a white shirt.
Doctoral Student
Department of Philosophy
Photo of Alec Fisher in front of a palm tree.
Doctoral Candidate
Close-up portrait of a white woman with pink and brown hair and blue eyes wearing a blue shirt
Doctoral Candidate
English
A portrait of Anna Nguyen wearing glasses.
Doctoral Candidate
History
Profile of Madison Heslop standing in front of a dark background and wearing a dotted shirt.
Doctoral Candidate
Department of History
Portrait of Anis Bawarshi sitting in front of a white brick wall.
Professor, Chair
Portrait of Charles LaPorte wearing glasses and standing in front of a tree.
Professor
English
Portrait of Linda Nash sitting in front of a bookcase.
Professor
Department of History
Portrait of Lynn Thomas wearing glasses and yellow dangle earrings.
Professor
History
Sara Goering professional photo smiling at the camera, blurred trees in the background, wearing a blue blazer, necklace, and hair pulled back
Professor
Philosophy
Portrait of Michael Blake wearing a suit and sitting outside.
Professor
Department of Philosophy

2021 - 2022 Reimagining the Humanities PhD Scholar

Portrait of Linda Nash sitting in front of a bookcase.

Linda Nash (she/her/hers)

Professor

Environmental Histories in the Anthropocene

What is the Anthropocene and the role of history within it? What are the stakes of telling environmental histories in the 21st century? What kinds of history are needed? In this co-taught course, Linda Nash and Lynn M. Thomas approach the Anthropocene by asking students to consider how histories of colonialism, race, inequality, capitalism, and consumerism are deeply intertwined with histories of the environment. Students will study and research the environmental and social/political histories of our surrounding region—the Pacific Northwest—and one site, farther afield, in Africa. In both cases, students will collaborate on “public-facing” projects in order to reach broader audiences and to show how thinking more deeply, broadly, and comparatively about the past might lead to a better understanding of our planetary predicament.