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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2024 - 2025 Society of Scholars
2021 - 2022 Society of Scholars Fellow
Rich Watts (he/him/his)
Reclaimed Waters: Literary History, Translation, and Resource Decolonization in the Francophone Post/colonial World
Aiming to intervene in the fields of ecocriticism/environmental humanities, francophone post/colonial studies, and literary/cultural history, Reclaimed Waters considers fundamental changes in relation to life’s most crucial element, fresh water, in literature and other cultural forms from formerly or presently colonized spaces in the French sphere of influence in the Caribbean, the Maghreb, sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia. More to the point, it details the cultural effects that these changes produce in places contending with the legacies of the French imperial project.