School of Humanities and Sciences
Showing 101-150 of 344 Results
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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 current research examines female supernatural (übernatürlich) figures in literature transhistorically, spanning medieval to 19th-century German language works, with an emphasis on gender, identity, and spatiality. She engages with haunting, affect, and liminal frameworks to explore how these figures, positioned as the abject, gaze onto patriarchal structures from the periphery, transgress through and with their Otherness, and thus open transformative spaces for reevaluation. Vera amplifies the ancestral female voices in literature, both in terms of authorship and character representation, drawing on feminist and queer theoretical frameworks as well as knowledge traditions rooted in diverse global perspectives and systems of thought that exist beyond Eurocentric and patriarchal paradigms. Her work interrogates the ways in which these marginalized figures challenge dominant systems of power and knowledge.
During her Master’s studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, Vera examined the poetry and activism of May Ayim through a framework of hauntology, analyzing how Ayim’s work critiques racial and gender inequalities in post-reunification Germany from an Afro-German perspective while creating space for intersectional solidarity. Vera’s dedication to fostering educational equity and inclusive perspectives within institutionalized learning environments was deeply influenced by her experiences growing up as a first-generation German. During her Bachelor’s studies in English Philology and North American Studies at Georg-August-University Göttingen, she was first inspired by Critical Theory and began to appreciate the profound capacity of literary criticism and the humanities to challenge systems of power and spark social change. -
Christopher Gurley
Ph.D. Student in Religious Studies, admitted Autumn 2022
Master of Arts Student in History, admitted Autumn 2024BioChristopher 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 InterestsCo-existence of Human and Non-Human Elements in a Soundscape
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Zach Haines
Ph.D. Student in Music, admitted Autumn 2022
BioZachary 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
BioJulia 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 Ethnicity
Research Assistant, Art & Art HistoryBioChristina 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.
