School of Humanities and Sciences
Showing 51-100 of 248 Results
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Chris East
Ph.D. Student in Music, admitted Autumn 2024
BioChris East is a PhD student in musicology at Stanford University. He studies Soviet music history, with a particular emphasis on official musical discourses of Socialist Realism. He is also interested in nightlife and dance music studies.
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James Flynn
Ph.D. Student in Classics, admitted Autumn 2023
Other Tech - Graduate, ClassicsCurrent Research and Scholarly InterestsJames Flynn is a PhD student in Ancient History. He focuses on the political, economic, and religious history of ancient Greece, and on connections with other contemporary societies, particularly ancient India. He is interested in the role of religion in legitimizing political institutions from a comparative perspective, and in the subordination of religion to political authority in the Greek poleis. For his undergraduate thesis at Brown, he compared trends among Hellenistic philosophers and Indian ascetics of withdrawal from society. For his Master’s capstone project at Yale, he wrote about the historical impact of climate change on 1st century BCE South Asia. He also pursued a second MA in religious studies, with a focus on Indian religions, and he studies the languages Sanskrit and Pali in addition to Latin and Greek. He is interested in using epigraphy and papyrology for historical sources. He is also interested in applying social scientific methods to large, cross-cultural datasets, looking for long-term trends in ancient history.
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Rosaley Gai
Ph.D. Student in Japanese, admitted Autumn 2020
EAH Workshop Coordinator, East Asian Languages and CulturesCurrent Research and Scholarly InterestsMy research focuses on depictions of food and eating in modern Japanese literature and media. In particular, I am interested in how material studies, food discourse, and reader reception intertwine in fiction. Aside from my dissertation, I also work on material food studies, meat-eating in Japan, and lineages of transpacific "fusion" food in the 20th and 21st centuries. I am also a wagashi (Japanese sweets) maker and lead workshops at Stanford on occasion.
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Vera Geranpayeh
Ph.D. Student in German Studies, admitted Autumn 2024
Ph.D. Minor, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality StudiesCurrent Research and Scholarly InterestsVera Geranpayeh is a PhD candidate in German Studies. Her dissertation investigates how Vera Geranpayeh is a PhD Student in German Studies and PhD Minor in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Stanford University. Her dissertation investigates how gender structures narrative movement in medieval German romance, focusing on minor female figures who remain structurally marginal yet narratively indispensable. She develops a framework for understanding how these figures catalyze plot progression through epistemic authority, mediation, and mobility, while remaining excluded from patriarchal mechanisms of narrative closure, such as minne and marriage.
In addition to her dissertation, she is developing a critical edition and English translation of a vernacular 1593 Franconian aristocratic household cookbook Ein koch büchlein vonn allerley speiß wie man sie kochen soll (1593). This project examines domestic authorship, women’s custodianship of culinary and medical knowledge, and the transmission of embodied expertise across generations.
Her research is further informed by training in Yiddish and a focused interest in early modern Yiddish texts, particularly domestic and practical writing, charms and magical materials, and the Yiddish Epic tradition.
She is also the student initiator of SCRIPTA, an interdisciplinary research group on gender, knowledge, and agency in premodern manuscript cultures, which combines theoretical discussion with hands-on archival work in Stanford’s Special Collections and hosts workshops with invited scholars.
She is the recipient of the Clayman Institute’s 2025 Marilyn Yalom Research Prize.
Her broader research spans queer survival, female bonds, and desire in nineteenth-century and fin-de-siècle German literature. She is the recipient of the Clayman Institute’s 2025 Marilyn Yalom Research Prize. -
Christopher Gurley
Ph.D. Student in Religious Studies, admitted Autumn 2022
BioChristopher Spencer Gurley, Jr is a Ph.D. student in the Religious Studies Department at Stanford University, where he specializes in American Religion and is pursuing a Ph.D. minor in history. His research explores the intersection of African American history and U.S. Catholic cultural life during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He is specifically interested in the religio-racial histories of U.S. Catholicism, Black identity constructions, Catholicism in the rural south, and the socio-historical politics of class and belonging regarding Black masculinity and manhood.
Before joining the Stanford community, he studied U.S. History at Georgetown University as a Patrick Healy Fellow. Chris earned his undergraduate degree in Political Science from Tennessee State University and his Master of Theological Studies degree from Vanderbilt Divinity School. He also holds a Master of Arts in Religion degree from Yale Divinity School, where he was chosen to become an Elie Wiesel-Martin Luther King, Jr. scholar at Oxford University. -
Mohammad H. Javaheri
Doctor of Musical Arts Student, Musical Arts
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsCoexistence of Animate and Inanimate Within a Shared Sound Space
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Zach Haines
Ph.D. Student in Music, admitted Autumn 2022
Renaissance Music Project Assistant, MusicBioZachary Haines is a PhD student in Musicology at Stanford University. He is both an active scholar and performer as a baritone, with research interests in the vocal repertoires of the late Renaissance and early Baroque.
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Julia Hirsch
Ph.D. Student in Religious Studies, admitted Autumn 2021
Master of Arts Student in Religious Studies, admitted Autumn 2025BioJulia Hirsch is a Ph.D. student in the Religious Studies Department at Stanford University, where she focuses on Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. She holds a B.A. from Boston College in Philosophy with minors in Psychoanalytics and Women’s & Gender Studies (2015). She received her M.A. in the History of Art and Archaeology: Religious Arts of Asia from SOAS University of London (2020).
Julia’s current research explores Buddhist material religion and visual culture, power objects, and ritual from an art-historical perspective. Of particular interest are relic cults, funerary rites, and the importance—and soteriological potential—of sensory encounter in South Asian and Himalayan traditions.
Prior to joining Stanford, Julia worked for several years at Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, where she continues to serve as a contributing editor covering Buddhist art, film, and publishing. -
Christina Hiromi Hobbs
Ph.D. Student in Art History, admitted Autumn 2022
Ph.D. Minor, Comparative Studies in Race and EthnicityBioChristina Hiromi Hobbs is an independent curator, writer, and art historian based in the Bay Area.
She is a PhD candidate in Art History at Stanford University with a minor in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity whose work focuses on twentieth century American art, modern and contemporary art of the Asian diaspora, and the history of photography. They are particularly interested in the intimacies of history, racial formation and historical memory, and vernacular archival practices.
Her recent projects include curating the exhibitions "In the Presence Of: Collective Histories of the Asian American Women Artists Association" at Berkeley Art Center (2024) and "Reflections of a Young Woman: Photographs from the Archive of Shigeko Kumamoto" at Latitude Chicago (2024). She also co-curated "No Monument: In the Wake of the Japanese American Incarceration" at the Noguchi Museum in Queens, New York (2022) which was featured in Artforum, Momus, Hyperallergic, The Guardian, and Public Seminar.
They have held research and curatorial positions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Modern Art Museum of Shanghai, Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, and The Renate, Hans and Maria Hofmann Trust. Her scholarship has been supported by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation. -
Ariel Horowitz
Ph.D. Student in Comparative Literature, admitted Autumn 2021
BioAriel Horowitz is a graduate student in Comparative Literature, focusing on Jewish literature and the ways in which twentieth-century Jewish writers, both Israeli and American, understand History. He holds a B.A. in Comparative Literature and Philosophy from the Hebrew University, and an M.A. (Summa Cum Laude) from the Hebrew University, where he wrote his thesis about Gershom Scholem's influence on Yaakov Shabtai's magnum opus, Past Continuous. Other interests include political theology, literary theory and continental philosophy. Ariel is also a novelist: his debut novel, Our Finest, was published with Keter Publishing House in 2021.
