Arts Inspire Grants Recipients

Congratulations to all the recipients of the Arts Inspire Grants!

• Dr. Martin Wagner, PhD, Professor (School of Languages, Linguistics, Literatures and Cultures)
• Dr. Uchechukwu Umezurike, PhD, Assistant Professor (English)
• Dr. Jani Parsons, DMA, Assistant Professor (School of Creative and Performing Arts)
• Christine Brubaker, Associate Professor (School of Creative and Performing Arts)
• Dr. Elizabeth Paris, PhD, Associate Professor (Anthropology and Archaeology)
• Dr. Marica Cassis, PhD, Associate Professor (Classics and Religion, History); Dr. Durga Kale, PhD'23; and PhD students Sanaz Safari and Sydney Burton

Arts Inspire Grants are designed to support research and research creation activities across all units in the Faculty of Arts. Upcoming application deadline: March 17, 2025. More information and apply

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Dr. Martin Wagner’s project intervenes in the field of German rap studies in two decisive ways. First, he will work on publishing a compact German-language monograph that develops a theory of German rap’s cultural significance by discussing the greater cultural implications of over thirty typical tropes and formal elements of German rap. Additionally, he will produce a book proposal for a handbook on German rap—the first English-language book on that topic. The English-language handbook will serve as a major resource for international researchers and instructors.

Dr. Uche Umezurike is working on a project called “Desiring Home”, which examines how African writers in Canada negotiate the complexities of home and how their stories enrich our understanding of and problematize what it means to be a Black Canadian. The project seeks to answer the following questions: How do African writers (re)imagine home in Canada? What do these imaginings articulate about their negotiation of belonging in Canada and the question of return that haunts migrant narratives? How does this negotiation illuminate or complicate definitions of Canadian citizenship? Lastly, what circumstances enhance or inhibit the flourishing of Africans in Canada?

Dr. Jani Parsons is the founding pianist and artistic/executive director of a professional chamber ensemble called Latitude 49. Latitude 49 worked intimately with Dr. Juri Seo to build six individual musical works, and to workshop and perform them in several residencies at Princeton University. New Amsterdam Records, one of the leading American labels in contemporary classical music, has agreed to represent and distribute the album. The Grammy-award winning sound engineer Bill Maylone has agreed to work closely with us to mix and master the final recordings with Juri Seo’s artistic guidance. Furthermore, the project will bring together artistic partners in Latitude 49 and Juri Seo to present the Canadian premiere of these works at the Sound Atlas Festival, a vibrant platform in Calgary for creative performance research and performance, taking place in June 2025 at Contemporary Calgary.

Dr. Christine Brubaker’s project Rella’s Cambrian Dream (RCD) is a research-creation project that directly aligns with the Faculty of Art’s priority of innovating and advancing Digital Futures. As a theatre-maker and live-performance researcher, I am investigating how new mobile interactive technologies can extend theatrical storytelling and enhance the live experience. Traditional live performance (dance/theatre/music) are essential art forms for creating shared meaning, fostering societal cohesion and well-being. However, the future of live performance is at a critical juncture: to compete with technology-rich entertainment, it must find ways to incorporate new technologies to remain relevant, heighten audiences’ sense of wonder and draw them into communal storytelling worlds.

Dr. Elizabeth Paris’ project examines ancient Maya civilization. Geochemical research can provide important insights into past agroecosystems, and identify the degree to which urban populations engaged in practices such as gardening, arboriculture, animal husbandry, and regional trade of plant and animal products. Her pilot study has provided provocative new evidence that live domestic dogs were among the animal products that were exchanged in this region prior to Spanish contact. Her team recently conducted a pilot study investigating geoisotopes and dietary isotopes for a range of archaeological fauna from highland Chiapas sites that included four samples of Moxviquil domestic dogs. The geoisotope analysis resulted in the discovery that all four of these archaeological dogs were imported over long distances, some from locations over 400 km away in the Petexbatún region of Guatemala; furthermore, the dietary isotopes suggested highly unusual diets that contained a large amount of corn. The results present a unique opportunity to explore the exchange of specialized dog breeds at Moxviquil.

Dr. Marica Cassis’ pilot project aims to create content for a specific period – the medieval period – which can be used by students themselves and by teachers who are tasked with instructing this material. She has chosen to start with the medieval period, precisely because it is something that everyone thinks they know a little bit about. This project was conceived of as a way of widening the scope of what has traditionally been seen as medieval by scholars who are passionate about decolonizing our understanding of the past (Heng 2018; Frankopan 2019). The goal is to create content that highlights the interconnections between different medieval societies, allows students to develop a connection with various people in the past, and then allows them to think critically about how those people engaged with each other and their environments. She has chosen to look at non-traditional medieval material as a means of addressing the idea that medieval necessarily refers to only European populations. With that in mind, we have chosen i) Medieval Baghdad; ii) the Crusades; and iii) the Silk Road, discussed below.