Resident Fellows Speaker Series
The Hall Center's Resident Fellows give lunchtime talks about their works-in-progress. These events are public and open to all, with a buffet lunch available for the first 45 attendees.
The Slave Market: Tracing the Movements and Commodification of Black Girls in 19th-Century New Orleans
Jessina Emmert (Sias Graduate Fellow, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies)
MON SEP 22, 12:00 PM
Hall Center Conference Hall
This talk examines the spatial movements of Eliza and her daughter Emily; both of whom are depicted in Solomon Northup’s 1853 memoir Twelve Years a Slave. Drawing on 1841 slave manifests documenting vessels arriving and departing the New Orleans slave port, as well as census records, Jessina Emmert traces Emily’s individual trajectory and situate it within the broader experiences of Black girls trafficked through this epicenter of bondage. The discussion centers Black girlhood in relation to the 'fancy trade' in New Orleans, emphasizing how Black girls were commodified and fashioned into prized figures known as 'fancy girls' within this exclusive market. To extend this line of inquiry, Emmert incorporates WPA narratives from formerly enslaved Black women who recall being bought and sold as young girls in the antebellum South. By foregrounding Black girls’ geographies, this analysis reimagines various sites within the slave market as crucial evidence for understanding their lived experiences.
Super Indians: A History of Red Power and Comic Books
Kent Blansett (Mid-Career Fellow, Associate Professor, History)
THU OCT 2, 12:00 PM
Hall Center Conference Hall
Super Indians explores how the comic book industry capitalized upon Indigenous themes and storylines from the golden age (1938-56) to contemporary comics. Throughout these pivotal years, comic writers and arts gradually changed how they presented Indigenous peoples, themes, and rights. This new creative direction in comics centered upon the larger Red Power movement of the 1960s and 70s. In particular, studying this transition, uncovers a fascinating story that demonstrates the pivotal role Red Power activism played in transforming American popular culture. In this story, Red Power was more than just a political movement, it also had led to a major social/cultural impact on American society. My research into this popular genre provides a new window into how Americans grappled with the greater meanings and legacies of this powerful period in modern Indigenous history. Finally, Super Indians identifies how Indigenous artists and writers have continued to transform the industry through both independent and mainstream comics.
Equine Archetype: Horses in Art as Symbols of Healing and Recovery
Michael J. Krueger (Professor, Visual Art)
TUE OCT 21, 12:00 PM
Hall Center Conference Hall
Michael Krueger’s fellowship project will include a new series of large-scale paintings and drawings inspired by horses used in equine therapy with children and teens facing trauma and adversity. These horses will serve as symbolic proxies for individuals navigating complex emotional and moral challenges, embodying themes of healing, transformation, and resilience.
The project will also include a publication that will explore how visual art can evoke shared emotional experiences and foster emotional intelligence. Krueger will investigate how line, color, viewpoint, and subject matter can create a sensorial space between artist and viewer—an aesthetic opening that invites reflection, empathy, and connection.
Drawing on over 30 years of teaching and studio practice, Krueger will continue his exploration of how drawing and painting can elicit well-being and deepen emotional awareness. He will ask whether visual art can help us experience ourselves more fully and connect more meaningfully with others. Through this work, he will examine how art can serve not only as representation, but as a means of fostering deeper connection to the self and the broader human experience.
Street Nihonga: The Art of Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani
Maki Kaneko (Associate Professor, Art History)
TUE NOV 18, 12:00 PM
Hall Center Conference Hall
This talk introduces Street Nihonga: The Art of Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani, a retrospective exhibition I am co-curating with Dr. Kris Ercums, opening at the Spencer Museum of Art on February 19, 2026. The exhibition centers on Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani (1920–2012), a Japanese American artist who lived and worked on the streets of New York City from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. Having experienced Japanese American incarceration, the loss of family members in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and the 9/11 attacks, Mirikitani created a body of work that is both deeply personal and politically resonant, using salvaged materials and referencing the traditionalist Japanese painting style known as Nihonga.
This presentation explores how Street Nihonga frames Mirikitani’s artistic trajectory, lived experiences, and contested historical memory. His collage-based practice—combining Nihonga aesthetics with New York street materials, multilingual text, and the participation of others—has challenged us to reconsider categories of art, identity, and belonging, as well as the institutional boundaries of the museum. Reflecting on the curatorial process, I examine how an exhibition might function as an open space for an overlooked artist’s voice—without reducing it to a singular narrative or a fixed identity.