Blog

From Kelly Richmond (RCAH), in partnership with several IAH classes:

Climate Change Theater Action (CCTA) is a biannual 5-minute play festival that connects plays written by professional international playwrights with local climate activism; 2025 is the ten-year anniversary  of festival and is themed “The Time Is Now”.

Climate Change Theater Action (CCTA) – East Lansing, will be hosted by Michigan State University on September 26th at Beal Botanical Garden and September 27th at Corey Marsh Ecological Research Center (CMERC) in Bath Township, both running from 1:00 – 4:00 PM. Free transportation between the MSU Campus and CMERC will be provided.

This festival will include musical and theatrical performances by Michigan State University students as well as a number of presentations, discussions, and booths hosted by community organizations involved in the climate movement.

The festival is free to attend, though pre-registration is recommended. For more information and registration, visit https://elansingclimateaction.art/.

From Julian Chambliss (ENG), teaching IAH 207 – Afrofantastic: Race, Power, and Gender in the Black Imaginary:

Jaime Hernandez is one of six siblings born and raised in Oxnard, California. His mother passed down a love of comics, which for Jaime became a passion rivaled only by his interest in the burgeoning punk rock scene of 1970s Southern California. Together with his brothers Gilbert and Mario, Jaime co-created the ongoing comic book series Love and Rockets in 1981, which Gilbert and Jaime continue to both write and draw to this day. Jaime’s work began as a perfect synthesis of the anarchistic, do-it-yourself aesthetic of the punk scene and an elegant cartooning style that recalled masters such as Charles M. Schulz and Alex Toth. 

Love and Rockets has evolved into one of the great bodies of American literary fiction, spanning five decades and countless high-water marks in the medium’s history. In 2016, Hernandez won the prestigious Los Angeles Times Book Prize for his graphic novel, The Love Bunglers. In 2017, he (along with Gilbert) was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame, and, in 2018, he released his first children’s book, the Aesop Book Prize-winning The Dragon Slayer: Folktales from Latin America. 

From Camelia Suleiman (LILAC), teaching IAH 207 – On Women Novelists from the Middle East:

This project examines how contemporary Mediterranean women writers critique patriarchal nationalisms and reimagine the region beyond rigid borders and exclusionary identities. We explore how women’s writing exposes the gendered dimensions of exclusion. By situating feminist voices within the Mediterranean zone, this study offers alternatives imaginaries of a porous, plural, and relational Mediterranean.

From Morgan Shipley (REL), teaching IAH 231A – Spiritual Journey and Mythic Quests and IAH 241E – Art & Mindfulness:

The 2025/2026 academic year marks the 5^th Year of my role as the Inaugural Foglio Endowed Chair of Spirituality. The Chair was established to honor the impact and legacy of Father Jake Foglio, an alumnus, former faculty member, longtime priest, and mentor to countless MSU student-athletes and coaches. 

Established to advance Father Jake’s commitment to others, to the academic study of the human spirit, and in relation to his efforts to expand understanding of spirituality to the myriad ways humans seek meaning and define what matters most in their lives and to their communities, the MSU Foglio Speaker Series on Spirituality ((https://foglio.cal.msu.edu) seeks to unpack how spirituality leads to and complicates the commitment to act humanly and humanely while attending to its religious, secular, and worldly applications. 

This year’s theme of spirituality and well-being was chosen to celebrate Father Jake and further his legacy. 

With a particular focus on health and healing, we are thrilled to announce that Dr. Lisa Miller will offer the 5^th Annual Fall Keynote.