School of Humanities and Sciences
Showing 301-359 of 359 Results
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Merve Tekgürler
Ph.D. Student in History, admitted Autumn 2019
Masters Student in Symbolic Systems, admitted Autumn 2023BioMerve Tekgürler is a PhD candidate in History (ABD) and an M.S. student in Symbolic Systems. In AY 2023-24, they hold the inaugural Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowship. Merve has a BA degree in History and Social and Cultural Anthropology from Freie University Berlin and an MA in History from Stanford.
Merve’s dissertation, tentatively titled “Crucible of Empire: Danubian Borderlands and the Making of Ottoman Administrative Mentalities” focuses on the Ottoman-Polish borderlands in the long 18th century (1760s-1820s), examining the changes and continuities north of the Danube River in relation to Russian and Austrian expansions. They study Ottoman news and information networks in this region and their impact on production and mobilisation of imperial knowledge.
As part of their dissertation project, Merve is training a handwritten text recognition model for 18th century Ottoman Turkish administrative hand and developing AI-based natural language processing tools for Ottoman Turkish. Their aim is to compile a large machine-readable corpus of manuscript news communiques and employ computational text analysis methods. In AY 2022-23, they were a Digital Humanities Graduate Fellow at Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA) with their project on topic modeling in Ottoman court histories from the 18th and 19th centuries.
Merve’s research on the borderlands ties to their passion for maps and spatial humanities. They are the co-PI in Cistern: A Database of Geographical Knowledge in the Ottoman World, which they started with Adrien Zakar in Winter 2020. They also contributed to their advisor Ali Yaycıoğlu’s Mapping Ottoman Epirus project, building a placenames dataset from an Ottoman transportation map and developing a 3D model of the late-nineteenth century Ottoman Empire with exaggerated elevation data.
Previously, Merve was a G.J. Pigott Scholar (AY 2022-23) and graduate coordinator of Stanford Humanities Center Eurasian Empires Workshop (AY 2021-22 & 2022-23). They also worked as senior graduate mentor for the Undergraduate Research Internship at CESTA from Spring 2021 to Fall 2022. Outside academia, Merve enjoys playing tennis, doing gymnastics, and all kinds of DIY projects. -
Kedao Tong
Ph.D. Student in Religious Studies, admitted Autumn 2018
BioKedao Tong is a PhD candidate in Buddhist Studies in the Department of Religious Studies. His research focuses on the socio-cultural history of Chinese Buddhism and topics related to animals in the Chinese and the broader East Asian contexts. He is currently writing his dissertation, tentatively titled "Rescue the Buddha’s Animal Disciples: The Practice of Buddhist Animal Release in China," which explores the the history of animal release (fangsheng) in Chinese religions from the fifth to the early twentieth centuries.
Kedao received an MA in Chinese from Stanford University, where he wrote a thesis that studies the writing of women’s epitaphs from China’s Northern Dynasties (439-581 AD). Prior to coming to Stanford, he received an Honors BA in East Asian Studies from the University of Toronto. He has taken up coursework and language training in Hong Kong and Japan, and has a background in editorial work in academic and other settings. -
Calvin Van Zytveld
Ph.D. Student in Music, admitted Autumn 2023
BioCalvin Van Zytveld is pursuing a Ph.D. in Musicology at Stanford University. His research interests include hymnody of pre-industrial America and agricultural practices of the early modern period.
Calvin graduated summa cum laude in music from Princeton University, with a certificate in cello performance. Following graduation, he began master’s degrees in music composition and cello performance at the University of Michigan, but lost his vision suddenly in the second year of his studies due to Leber’s Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON). Unable to read music, Calvin performs and writes music less frequently now, though he can be heard performing with the Plymouth Chamber Players, a grassroots chamber collective he co-directs with violinists Paolo Dara and Karisa Chiu in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Calvin enjoys organic vegetable gardening, drinking tea, and walking with his guide dog, Wake. -
Dejan Vasic
Ph.D. Student in Art History, admitted Autumn 2023
BioDejan Vasić is an art historian and curator of late modern and contemporary art and moving image media. He specializes in the transnational avant-garde and conceptual art, concentrating primarily on performance, video art, photography, and artists’ films and media works. His research intersects art, power, war, and everyday life, with methodological grounding in historical materialism, memory politics, decolonial, gender and feminist theory, and affirmation of critical thinking as a public good. Dejan is passionate about the history of exhibitions, museology and curatorial practice; he is invested in writings in the first person, and frequently collaborates with artists who battle social, economic and political problems.
Prior to coming to Stanford, Vasić had over a decade of experience in Serbia and the Yugoslav region, where he engaged in radical curatorial practices and critical writing that delves into the politics and ethics of aesthetics. Since 2012, he is a member of the International Association of Art Critics AICA and has served on the Program Advisory Board of AICA-Serbia (2020-2023). Dejan curated visual arts program at the Center for Cultural Decontamination in Belgrade (2017-2023), co-edited the Beton - Cultural Propaganda Kit (2018-2023), was part of the Four Faces of Omarska Working Group (2010-2015), the Culture of Memory curatorial platform (2010-2014) and Kontekst Collective (2009-2013). -
Vannessa Velez
Ph.D. Student in History, admitted Autumn 2017
BioVannessa Velez is a PhD Candidate in History at Stanford University. Her research broadly examines the environmental impact of globalization on urban centers, with particular attention to environmental inequality. Her dissertation traces the environmental and political history of metro-Atlanta’s rapid economic development in the second half of the twentieth century, when the city’s leaders embraced globalization both early and enthusiastically to great economic success, at the expense of the city’s built and natural environment.
Vannessa is the recipient of several fellowships and awards, including the Mellon Mays Fellowship, the Norall Award, and the Stanford Humanities Center Dissertation Prize. She is currently working on several projects, including a digital humanities project dedicated to research methods in Black Studies, an article on black environmental politics in the 1980s, and a co-authored article on race, globalization, and the 1996 Centennial Olympics in Atlanta. -
Katherine Whatley
Ph.D. Student in Japanese, admitted Autumn 2019
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy research examines the relationship between the written and the spoken word in Classical Japan. I take this relationship as the starting place and explore the role of music in Classical Japan through looking at words-as-song. From this vantage point, I argue that music was a primary mode of communication amongst people (especially women) and their surroundings—interpersonal, international, and inter-environmental. I am also a composer and koto performer working on a dissertation composition.
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Spark Wu
Master of Arts Student in Music, admitted Autumn 2023
BioSpark皇毅, a dynamic and talented rapper, singer, and producer from Taiwan, embarked on his musical journey at the tender age of 15, working as a freelance contract producer. His early start in the industry allowed him to hone a diverse set of skills, including music production, sound effects creation, film scoring, singing, and rapping.
In 2016, at just 16 years old, Spark demonstrated his entrepreneurial spirit by establishing ROLE PRODUCTION, a company he founded with the accumulated earnings from his collaborations with friends on various projects like short films, advertisements, and commercials.
His artistic breakthrough came in 2020 with the release of his debut album, "Fairy Fakeass Tale," under the esteemed HIM International Music record label. This album stood out for its innovative use of Grimms' Fairy Tales as allegories to critique societal appearances; it delved into the deceptive veneer of beauty that masks underlying corruption, violence, and sexuality, mirroring the dark themes prevalent in these classic tales.
The album's unique narrative approach, coupled with collaborations with renowned artists such as Karencici and F.I.R., quickly propelled "Fairy Fakeass Tale" to popularity. This success opened doors for Spark, leading to numerous performance opportunities across Taiwan.
Furthering his commitment to his craft, Spark graduated from the University of Michigan in 2023 with a Bachelor's degree in Performing Arts Technology. He is currently furthering his academic pursuits with a Master’s degree at Stanford University, continuing to blend his artistic talents with academic excellence. -
Crystal Yu
Master of Arts Student in Chinese, admitted Autumn 2021
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsModern and contemporary Chinese literature; comparative literature.
