Society of Scholars

chairs against a blackboard

The Society of Scholars is an intellectual community of humanists of diverse generations, academic ranks, and departmental affiliations who contribute to and learn from one another’s work. Each year, approximately eight faculty and three dissertation research fellowships support members of the Society of Scholars. Scholars in year-long residence at the University of Washington may be invited to participate as well. The group meets biweekly throughout the year to discuss their research in progress. 

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Cohort Archives

2025 - 2026 Society of Scholars

Jesse Cavalari
Doctoral Candidate
History
Kavita Dattani
Assistant Professor
Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies
Agnieszka Jezyk
Maria Kott Endowed Assistant Professor of Polish Studies
Slavic Languages and Literatures
Saad Khan
Doctoral Candidate
Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies
Linh Thủy Nguyên
Associate Professor
American Ethnic Studies
Alexandria Ramos
Assistant Professor
English
Jen Rose Smith
Assistant Professor
Geography
Timeka Tounsel
Associate Professor
Communication
Natalie Vaughan-Wynn
Doctoral Candidate
Geography
Alys Eve Weinbaum
Professor
English
Kathleen Woodward
Director
Simpson Center for the Humanities
Glennys Young
Professor
History
Erica Bigelow
Doctoral Candidate
Philosophy
Francesca Colonnese
Doctoral Candidate
English
Amna Farooqi
Doctoral Candidate
School of Drama
Angel Garduño
Doctoral Candidate
English
Nastasia Paul-Gera
Doctoral Candidate
Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies
Kexin Song
Doctoral Candidate
English

2022 - 2023 Society of Scholars Fellow

Black and white portrait of Kewi Adeyemi

Kemi Adeyemi (she/her/hers)

Assistant Professor

The Ontokinetics of Black Queer Life

The Ontokinetics of Black Queer Life considers the world of black queer apathy, disinterest, detachment, and disassociation. The language of ontokinetics (ways of being that are also ways of moving, and vice versa) helps situate how, exactly, black queers interface with the physical and affective protocols of neoliberalism, when the state’s longstanding disinvestment in and regulation of black queer life is further entrenched by privatization and financialization. By bringing performance studies and philosophy together with analysis of contemporary art and performance, this project further considers how black queers resist and subvert the multiple modes of precarity produced under neoliberal rule.