UW News

Department of American Ethnic Studies


February 15, 2024

ArtSci Roundup: The Big Read, DXARTS Winter Concert, LOVERULES Exhibition and more

This week, attend the “Big Read” conversation with Dr. Joy Buolamwini, visit the Henry Art Gallery for Hank Willis Thomas’ LOVERULES Exhibition, head to the Seattle Art Museum for “Tides of Times: A Conversation On Maritime Asia in Art and Trade” and more. February 20, 1:00 pm | The Big Read: Keynote Conversation with the…


January 4, 2024

ArtSci Roundup: History Lecture Series, Dorothy Roberts Lecture, Gallery Exhibits, and more

Start the new year at the Jacob Lawrence Gallery for an exhibition, spend an evening listening to Dr. Dorothy Roberts’ lecture, attend the History Lecture Series, and more. Henry Art Galleries Events January 4, 5:30 – 7:00pm | A/political Rocks and Indigenous Relations to Land: A Lecture with Prof. Christopher Teuton, Auditorium January 11, 5:30…


April 28, 2023

ArtSci Roundup: Spring Faculty Panel, Producing Artist Lab, Indigenous Foods Symposium, and more

This week, listen to a leading voice in the women’s movement, watch the UW School of Drama’s student directed play “In The Blood”, attend the Indigenous Foods Symposium, and more.


March 31, 2023

ArtSci Roundup: Faculty Concerts, Women’s Liberation Movement Book Talk, Dover Quartet and more

This week, head to Meany Hall for the Grammy-nominated Dover Quartet performance, learn about Seattle’s radical women’s liberation movement of the 60s and 70s from Barbara Winslow, celebrate Arab American Heritage Month and more.   April 4, 9:00 AM – 12:30 PM | Energy Security in Europe: Current and Future Challenges, Thomson Hall and Zoom…


January 27, 2023

ArtSci Roundup: Doce Sones para Doce Poetas / Twelve Songs for Twelve Poets, Thick as Mud exhibition opening, and more

Attend lectures, performances, and more! January 18 – February 15, 7:30 PM |History Lecture Series: Medieval Made Modern, Kane Hall The medieval period has always occupied a paradoxical position in our cultural memory. An age of fantasy unimaginably distant from historical reality, it is also an era onto which writers and artists—and now moviemakers and…


January 19, 2023

ArtSci Roundup: Behzod Abduraimov, “Manzanar, Diverted” Screening and Director talk, and more

Start the new year with lectures, performances, and more! January 24, 7:30 PM |Behzod Abduraimov, Meany Hall Since winning the London International Piano Competition in 2009, Behzod Abduraimov’s passionate and virtuosic performances have dazzled audiences around the world. His “prodigious technique and rhapsodic flair” (The New York Times) have defined his career as a recording…


December 15, 2022

ArtSci Roundup: January Preview

Start the new year with lectures, performances, exhibitions and more.


November 3, 2022

ArtSci Roundup: Assessing the 2022 Midterm Election Results With Implications for the Next Two Years and for 2024, Empires Strick Back: Football and Colonialism, and more

Connect with the UW community every week through public events and exhibitions, summarized in this ArtSci Roundup.


October 28, 2022

ArtSci Roundup: Democracy and the 2022 Midterm Elections, Hafu ハーフ film screening, and more!

Connect with the UW community every week through public events and exhibitions, summarized in this ArtSci Roundup.


July 12, 2022

New faculty books: Threats to US democracy, early history of gay rights, and more

four book covers on a table

Federalism, queer history, the impact of the Russian Revolution on Jewish communities, and the evolution of Filipinx American studies are among the subjects of recent and upcoming books by UW faculty.


March 21, 2022

UW expert: Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmation hearings ‘will hold a mirror up to this nation’

LaTaSha Levy, assistant professor of American ethnic studies at the University of Washington, and Elizabeth Porter, interim dean of the UW School of Law, offer perspectives on the nomination and confirmation process of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court.


February 10, 2022

ArtSci Roundup: Charles Yu at Benaroya Hall, Faculty Recital: Melia Watras: The almond tree duos, and More

Through public events and exhibitions, connect with the UW community every week! Many of these opportunities are streamed through Zoom. All UW faculty, staff, and students have access to Zoom Pro via UW-IT.  Charles Yu at Benaroya Hall February 15, 7:30 PM | Benaroya Hall & Online Shawn Wong, Professor of English, will moderate the Q&A…


June 17, 2021

‘An occasion for unapologetic Black joy, community connection, and reeducation’: UW’s LaTaSha Levy discusses Juneteenth

A red, black and green flag hangs outside a building.

LaTaSha Levy, assistant professor of American ethnic studies at the University of Washington, discusses Juneteenth, the myths and omissions in telling its story, and the ongoing importance of fighting for, and celebrating, Black freedom.


May 19, 2021

ArtSci Roundup: Rage by B. Dance, MFA Dance Concert, and More

During this time of uncertainty and isolation, find solace in digital opportunities to connect, share, and engage. Each week, we will share upcoming events that bring the UW, and the greater community, together online.  Many of these online opportunities are streamed through Zoom. All UW faculty, staff, and students have access to Zoom Pro via UW-IT.  Reading…


May 10, 2021

ArtSci Roundup: A new Measure: the Revolutionary Quantum Reform of the Metric System, Sacred Breath: Indigenous Writing and Storytelling Series, and more

During this time of uncertainty and isolation, find solace in digital opportunities to connect, share, and engage. Each week, we will share upcoming events that bring the UW, and the greater community, together online.  Many of these online opportunities are streamed through Zoom. All UW faculty, staff, and students have access to Zoom Pro via UW-IT.  Sacred…


March 25, 2021

ArtSci Roundup: Fighting Visibility: Unpaid Gendered & Racialized Labor for the UFC, Beverly Guy-Sheftall – Say Her Name: The Urgency of Black Feminism Now, and More

During this time of uncertainty and isolation, find solace in digital opportunities to connect, share, and engage. Each week, we will share upcoming events that bring the UW, and the greater community, together online.  Many of these online opportunities are streamed through Zoom. All UW faculty, staff, and students have access to Zoom Pro via UW-IT.  Fighting…


March 19, 2021

How white supremacy, racist myths fuel anti-Asian violence

Signs read "hate has no place" and "stop Asian hate"

Linh Thủy Nguyễn, an assistant professor of American ethnic studies at the University of Washington, discusses the recent wave of violence against Asians and Asian Americans, and the history behind it.


November 3, 2020

ArtSci Roundup: Global Challenges Discussion, Katz Lecture: Abderrahmane Sissako, and more

During this time of uncertainty and isolation, find solace in digital opportunities to connect, share, and engage. Each week, we will share upcoming events that bring the UW, and the greater community, together online.  Many of these online opportunities are streamed through Zoom. All UW faculty, staff, and students have access to Zoom Pro via UW-IT.  Lessons…


October 13, 2020

ArtSci Roundup: Beyond Guilt Trips, Washin Kai: Rakugo by Katsura Sunshine, Protests for the Soul of a Nation, and More

During this time of uncertainty and isolation, find solace in digital opportunities to connect, share, and engage. Each week, we will share upcoming events that bring the UW, and the greater community, together online.  Many of these online opportunities are streamed through Zoom. All UW faculty, staff, and students have access to Zoom Pro via UW-IT.  Beyond…


October 5, 2020

UW secures competitive $1 million Luce Foundation grant to advance Southeast Asian research and community engagement

art piece

The Southeast Asia Center at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies and the Libraries at the University of Washington will spearhead a new initiative of innovative collaborations to explore the effects and consequences of authoritarianism in Southeast Asia and on Southeast Asian American communities in the United States.


August 10, 2020

Rick Bonus documents Pacific Islander students building community against odds at the UW in book

In The Ocean in the School Rick Bonus tells the stories of Pacific Islander students as they and their allies struggled to transform a university they believed did not value their presence.

In his latest book, Rick Bonus discusses how Pacific Islander students at the UW used the ocean as a metaphor to create community for themselves and change their university.


March 17, 2020

‘It’s a good test’: UW faculty, students adjust to an online end to the quarter, prepare for spring

This wasn’t how LaShawnDa Pittman expected to give her final exam review: At her kitchen table, laptop open, coffee cup at the ready, her 12-year-old Chihuahua named Espresso by her side. But as the first week of the University of Washington’s shift to online classes drew to a close, Pittman, an assistant professor of American…


March 9, 2020

Book notes: UW architectural historian Tyler Sprague explores the work of Kingdome designer Jack Christiansen

Tyler Sprague is an assistant professor of architecture who studies and teaches structural design and architectural history. A former structural engineer himself, Sprague is the author of "Sculpture on a Grand Scale: Jack Christiansen's Thin Shell Modernism."

A talk with UW architecture professor Tyler Sprague about his book “Sculpture on a Grand Scale: Jack Christiansen’s Thin Shell Modernism.” Plus books from Rick Bonus and Yong-Chool Ha.


May 24, 2019

UW books in brief: Mindful travel in an unequal world, day laborers in Brooklyn, activist educators

Recent notable books by University of Washington faculty explore mindful international travel, men seeking work as day laborers, and activist teachers.


March 15, 2018

New minor recognizes, celebrates Pacific Islander community

The University of Washington’s new minor in Oceania and Pacific Islander Studies debuts spring quarter. The 25-credit, interdisciplinary program is the result of a longtime effort to elevate the history and culture of an underrepresented, and often misrepresented, community.


February 27, 2018

Mining memories for stories of ‘real black grandmothers’

LaShawnDa Pittman, a UW assistant professor of American Ethnic Studies, is collecting stories of African-American grandmothers, past and present, on her Real Black Grandmothers website.


April 28, 2017

Class on Black Lives Matter examines ideas behind the slogan

At first, La TaSha Levy was worried her class on Black Lives Matter would be almost out of date. After all, who hasn’t seen the signs, heard the slogans, watched — or perhaps even participated in — marches to protest racism and violence against African Americans? But that was just it, realized Levy, a new…


May 12, 2016

Tour UW Libraries’ new Conservation Center May 25

Visitors learn about UW Libraries' new Conservation Center, in Suzzallo Library, during an April Friends of the Library tour.

UW Libraries invites the public to tour its new state-of-the-art Conservation Center on the fifth floor of Suzzallo Library, from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Wednesday, May 26.


December 17, 2015

Study: Safety net fails impoverished grandmothers raising children

Increasing numbers of grandmothers across the United States are raising their grandchildren, many of them living in poverty and grappling with a public assistance system not designed to meet their needs. LaShawnDa Pittman, an assistant professor in the University of Washington’s Department of American Ethnic Studies, interviewed 77 African American grandmothers living in some of…


April 16, 2014

Metoyer to present 10th annual Samuel E. Kelly Distinguished Faculty Lecture

Cheryl Metoyer sits reading a book

In her lecture “Are We There Yet? The Four Directions in Native American Higher Education,” Metoyer will talk about the historic development of Native Americans in higher education.