Society of Scholars
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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2023 - 2024 Society of Scholars Fellow
Alexandra Meany (she/her/hers)
Post-war U.S. Urban Literatures and Geographies of Violence
Alexandra Meany’s research examines discursive responses to Indigenous land dispossession and racial enclosure in U.S. cities during the long period of urban renewal from the 1940s through the 1980s. Bridging Urban Geography and Literary Studies, her dissertation showcases how various novels historicize struggle over space in ways not readily discerned by social scientists or historians of the city and thus might contribute pivotally to the activist work of building a politically radical spatial imaginary. Overall, she demonstrates how certain urban novels throw into relief the spatial expressions of racial capitalism’s expansion and offer insight on how to stop it.