Dresher Center for the Humanities at UMBC

08/14/2026

We are happy to announce our line-up for the Fall 2026 Humanities Forum

- Jodi Byrd, University of Chicago
Indigenomicon: American Indians, Video Games, and the Structures of Dispossession

- Kim Bowes, University of Pennsylvania
The Economic Lives of Rome’s Ninety Percent

- Nishant Upadhyay, University of Colorado Boulder
Indians on Indian Lands: Intersections of Race, Caste, and Indigeneity

- Jorell A. Meléndez-Badillo, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Puerto Rico, Historical Thinking, and the Politics of Forgetting in the Caribbean

https://dreshercenter.umbc.edu/humanities-forum/current/

08/05/2026

Our Alt-Text as Poetry Workshop is back by popular demand!

Facilitated by Courtney Hobson, manager of the Dresher Center for the Humanities, this workshop will explore the ideas developed by artists Bojana Coklyat and Shannon Finnegan in their ongoing Alt-Text as Poetry project. Participants will also learn how to write creative alt-text to describe images on digital platforms and make online communities more accessible, fun, and welcoming.

**This workshop is recommended for faculty and staff who are the site administrators for their department/program website and/or myUMBC page. If you attended the workshop in April, you do not need to attend this session. However, you are more than welcome to if you need a refresher.

08/04/2026

In her new book, "Traces of Zainab: Ritual, Memory, and Place in Shi'a Islam," Noor Zaidi, assistant professor of history, traces the history of the woman who became a symbol of resistance for Shi‘i Muslims worldwide.

Zaidi is leading efforts to preserve the archives of the Sayyida Zainab shrine with the support of the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library in Minnesota, the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik in Lebanon, and the Mourtada family of Damascus, who have served as custodians of the shrine for more than 800 years.

In her new book, Traces of Zainab: Ritual, Memory, and Place in Shi'a Islam, Noor Zaidi, assistant professor of history, studies the woman who became a...

07/16/2026

Anyone passing by Room 208 of the Sondheim Building this spring might have thought the class was a Latin American music appreciation course. Projected on the screen was a video of the Mexican band Los Ángeles Azules (“The Blue Angels”), featuring Natalia Lafourcade singing “Nunca Es Suficiente” (“It’s Never Enough”).

In Silvia Escanilla Huerta’s history classroom, music is not background noise but a historical text carrying centuries of migration, colonialism, resistance, and cultural exchange. “Nunca Es Suficiente” is a modern Mexican interpretation of Colombian cumbia, a 200-year-old genre of music created with African, Indigenous, and European acoustic instruments. Escanilla Huerta uses material culture—songs, videos, poems, documentaries, art, and student-created work—to awaken students’ senses and engage their interest in the complex history of Latin America.

History class: Silva Escanilla Huerta, assistant professor, has found that using material culture helps students connect abstract historical ideas with...

06/11/2026

Kyung-Eun Yoon, Associate Professor and the Coordinator of Korean, recently published an article in Spark Magazine (published by published by the University of Michigan's Phillip J. Bowman Center for Scholarship to Practice). Through personal reflection and her own research, Yoon provides insight into learning Korean and building cultural assets through K-Culture.

Learning Korean and Building Cultural Assets through K-Culture

06/05/2026

Congratulations are in order for Kristin Kelly and Neisha-Anne Green for successfully presenting their dissertation research proposal in the Language, Literacy, and Culture doctoral program.

Kelly and Green were both graduate student research fellows for the Dresher Center (Kelly in Spring 2025 and Green in Spring 2026).

https://dreshercenter.umbc.edu/news/post/160562

06/03/2026

Registration for "Centering Community Voices: Exploring Stories that Shaped Us" is now open!

Hosted at UMBC by Maryland Humanities, this is Maryland's first ever statewide humanities conference. This day-long event will bring together storytellers, educators, historians, students, librarians, cultural leaders, and community members from across Maryland to explore how storytelling preserves history, builds connection, and strengthens communities.

Thursday, July 9 from 9am to 4pm in the Performing Arts and Humanities Building

https://www.mdhumanities.org/programs/special-initiatives/centering-community-voices-exploring-stories-that-shaped-us/

05/18/2026

Appropriately, chapter one of UMBC’s inaugural BookFest began at AOK Library Plaza. Hundreds of students gathered at the BookMarkIt to try letterpress printing, stitch pamphlets, create and swap zines, and browse a book arts display and used books.

Lindsay DiCuirci, associate professor of English, envisioned Bookfest ’26 after receiving professional development funds from the Breaking the M.O.L.D. leadership program in the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences in spring 2025. Her proposal for the funds included hosting a book festival that explored both the creative, maker-based aspects of book history and the importance of advocacy and access. BookFest came to fruition this April when UMBC celebrated writers, readers, makers, and advocates during National Library Week.

UMBC's inaugural BookFest brought together students, faculty, and staff to celebrate reading, books, and more.

05/13/2026

The Dresher Center is pleased to announce our Summer 2026 Tenure and Non-Tenure Track Fellows, as well as our Fall 2026 Residential Faculty Fellows.

For Summer 2026: Haniyeh Barahouie Pasandi (modern languages, linguistics, and intercultural communication); Lisa Cassell (philosophy); and Iris Blake (american studies)

For Fall 2026: Jason Loviglio (media and communication studies) and Brian Van Wyck (history)

Learn more about their projects on our website!

https://dreshercenter.umbc.edu/news/post/158201/

04/22/2026

Two partner (and virtual!) events are coming up on Monday, April 27:

First, Dr. Mimi Khúc will facilitate an interactive tarot-making workshop that will use the Asian American Tarot to explore mental health and the current social, cultural, and structural forces that shape it, engaging critical arts approaches that provide new vocabularies for both what hurts and how we might care for what hurts, together. This event is hosted by the Critical Disability Studies Minor.

Then, Peruvian performer Luciano Anahel, whose work across drag, ballroom, and experimental performance offers a lens to understand masculinity as something constructed, negotiated, and lived, will be in virtual conversation with Dr. Meloddye Carpio Rios for her "Masculinities in the Americas" seminar.

Learn more at https://dreshercenter.umbc.edu/partner-events/