2022-23 CHAS Occasional Speaker Series
May 18, 2022: Jordie Davies & Christian Hosam
On Thursday, May 18th, scholars Jordie Davies and Christian Hosam led a stimulating conversation in our occasional virtual speaker series, on “Constructing Campus Solidarities.”
Dr. Jordie Davies is a postdoctoral scholar in the P3 Lab at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. In 2023, she will join the faculty at the University of California Irvine as an Assistant Professor of Political Science. Jordie received her PhD in political science from the University of Chicago.
Jordie’s research and writing interests include Black politics and political thought, US social movements, solidarity, and Black feminism. Her research agenda focuses on how social movements shape political attitudes, activism, and political participation.
Jordie’s book project Alienated proposes the framework “Alienated Activism” to describe the emergence of social movements in response to entrenched anti-Blackness, with a focus on the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Christian Hosam is a fifth year PhD Candidate in Political Science at the University of California Berkeley and a Graduate Student Researcher with the UC Berkeley Possibility Lab. He is the co-author of Latino Politics, 3rd ed., with Professor Lisa Garcia Bedolla. In addition to his academic work, he has also written for public outlets such as Dissent Magazine and The Washington Post.
Christian’s research projects are driven by thinking about how structural aspects of the American political economy play out in the day-to-day lives of Black people and other communities of color. He has produced work on the American maternal mortality crisis and how the structure of American healthcare uniquely imperils the life course of Black women.
His dissertation book project examines how the shifting nature of Congress as an institution in the years following the Civil Rights Movement led to increased descriptive representation on one hand but increasing constraints on the types of transformational policies that can materially change Black communities on the other, a tension he theorizes as representational triage.
October 27, 2022: Wayne Assing
Join us at 4p Eastern on Thursday, October 27th, as we engage in a frank conversation on issues related to mental health on college campuses, with Wayne Assing, MSW, LCSW, Director of Counseling & Psychological Services at Bates College.
As an immigrant from Trinidad and a First Generation student, Wayne (he/him) has a strong personal understanding of intersecting identities and a fundamental belief that “we all belong here.” He sees individual growth and community development as interdependent rather than separate entities, and recognizes that communities flourish when we can all share lived experiences, identities, and cultural backgrounds with each other.
Wayne received his BA from Colgate University and his MSW from the Simmons School of Social Work in Boston. Wayne has supported the mental health needs of students throughout his career, having previously worked at RISD, Tufts, and Vassar, among other institutions. Wayne has considerable experience in the areas of community organizing, conflict resolution, group work, social justice and trauma-informed care. In his spare time, Wayne enjoys food, mindfulness practices, nature, people, and photography.