Places, Words, Stories

by | Aug 31, 2024

  Migration and its disruptions define our experiences of home—and probably yours, too. It shapes a great deal of our personal and professional attentions. We were both born in D.C., extensions of the circuitous migrations of our respective families. We grew up...

Flood of Memory

by | Aug 30, 2024

On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the forced removal and imprisonment of all Japanese Americans living on the West Coast. Maya Castronovo’s documentary short, Flood of Memory, explores the role of memory and...

Thinking Geographically with Museum Collections

by | Sep 16, 2023

Thinking Geographically with Museum Collections is a lesson activity by Michelle Kelly that encourages students to think about migration and its effects on individuals, communities, and places while also reflecting on their family stories of migration. Using primary...

To Gather and to Grieve

by | Sep 14, 2022

  Not long before Covid-19 reached the Southwestern United States, I listened to a podcast interview with the Nigerian writer and spiritualist Bayo Akomolafe in which he spoke of grieving as ceremony, “…when we grieve, it’s not instrumental to anything but, it’s...

The Urban Art Mapping Project

by | Aug 30, 2021

Introduction The Urban Art Mapping Project at the University of St. Thomas began in the fall of 2018 to document, map, and analyze street art in St. Paul and Minneapolis, MN. Founded by Heather Shirey, Paul Lorah, and David Todd Lawrence–an art historian, a...