Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on October 18, 2021

Professors bring expertise in diaspora literature, Buddhism, moral motivation and more. [3 min read]

Scholars with expertise in a range of humanities disciplines joined the ranks of USC Dornsifes faculty during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. (Composite: Dennis Lan.)

In the midst of a pandemic and a subsequent campus shutdown in 2020, a new group of faculty joined the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and jumped directly into teaching and research.

These recently arrived humanities professors bring knowledge of topics like African and Latin American diaspora literature, investigate the connection between voice and power and tackle questions around morality.

Corrine Collins| Assistant Professor of English

Academic focus:My research focuses on representations of multi-raciality in 20th- and 21st-century African diaspora literature.

What do you like to do in your spare time?I like cooking, watching TV and reading.

If you could invite one person to dinner, living or dead, who would you select? What would be on the menu?Phyllis Hyman for fried shrimp.

Favorite book youve read lately? Gingerbreadby Helen Oyeyemi.

Joan Flores-Villalobos| Assistant Professor of History

Academic focus:My work focuses on histories of gender, race and diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean. My current book project,The Silver Women: Gender, Labor, and Migration at the Panama Canal,is a history oftheWest Indianwomenwho traveled to Panama duringthecrucial decade oftheCanal construction, from 1904 to 1914.

Zoe Johnson King| Assistant Professor of Philosophy

Academic focus:I work on moral motivation, moral uncertainty, moral ignorance, praise and blame. What should we do when we face complex, fraught situations in which its unclear how to strike the right balance between everything important at stake? How should we think about what it is to be a good person in a way that can apply to messy, complicated, real-life folk who are often uncertain or mistaken about what matters and who also face surrounding circumstances that are deeply unjust?

If you could invite one person to dinner, living or dead, who would you select? What would be on the menu?Aristotle. Ive got a mug with his face on it, so Id serve him tea in that mug and tell him that were still reading his stuff 3,000 years later. I bet hed like that.

Where is your favorite place to travel?I once stayed in a treehouse on an avocado farm in Guatemala. That was pretty great. Oh, or in a hammock on an island that formed when two volcanoes erupted in the middle of a giant lake in Nicaragua. I never go anywhere twice, so its hard to pick favorites, but those two stand out.

Favorite book youve read lately?Oof, wouldnt it be nice to read for pleasure?

Sarah Kessler| Assistant Professor of English

Academic focus:Broadly, Im interested in the connections between voices and power. Why do we associate having a voice with having power? Where does this cultural assumption fall short in imagining what voices are and can do? How do ideas of race, gender and sexuality condition us to hear voices differently? And how do we develop new listening practices that challenge this?

Favorite book youve read lately? Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon orSeveranceby Ling Ma.

What inspires you?My cats Lily and Corky. They are littermates and their relationship is so caring and beautiful.

What food or condiments will we always find in your kitchen?Sriracha, mayonnaise and Sriracha mayonnaise.

Jessica (Xiaomin) Zu| Assistant Professor of Religion

Academic focus:Im an intellectual historian and a scholar of Buddhist studies.I investigatethe socio-religious change in modern Asia from the overlooked perspectives of religious innovators. My research uncovers unknown episodes and understudied historical actors that paved the way to the modern afterlives of ancient Buddhist spiritual inclusiveness as a collective quest for social equality.

Learn about other faculty who joined USC Dornsife during the 202021 academic year >>

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