2020-2021 American Council of Learned Societies Fellow

César Cabezas - Philosophy
César Cabezas specializes in philosophy of race, social philosophy, and political philosophy. His current project develops an interdisciplinary framework for explaining the resilience of social structures of racial oppression. He is especially interested in explaining what leads agents who self-identify as non-racist to lend their support (active or passive) to practices, policies, and institutions that reinforce racial inequality. He received his B.A. from Grinnell College, and his Ph.D. from Columbia University.

2018-2019 Diversity and Inclusion Postdoctoral Fellow

Rachel Goffe - Geography and Urban Studies
Rachel is a human geographer and a licensed architect. Her research focuses on the relationships among the built environment, land rights, and livelihood, questioning how these relationships structure—and are structured by—the racial capitalist state. She has done research in Jamaica, where she is originally from, and in Philadelphia, where she has lived for many years. Through ethnographic research in informal settlements in Jamaica, she investigated the enactment of new policy regarding squatting, explicating how that process was shaped by regional traditions and the engagement of residents with varied aspects of the state—from social welfare to enforcement agencies.

In Philadelphia, Dr. Goffe worked with community organizations struggling against dispossession, shrinking public services, and low wages. With residents, she co-produced media, research, education, and GIS analysis to articulate alternative visions for the city. The resulting radio and video pieces aired on community low power radio, community access TV and internet platforms, but most importantly they aided in building relationships with other organizers. Dr. Goffe earned a Bachelor’s in Architecture from Temple University and a PhD from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

2018-2019 Diversity and Inclusion Postdoctoral Fellow

Shaeeda Mensah - Philosophy
Shaeeda served as a Diversity Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Philosophy. She received a PhD in Philosophy from Pennsylvania State University. Her research focuses on the intersections of race and gender, punishment, and state violence. In particular, she explores the over emphasis of Black men’s experiences, and the marginalization of Black women’s experiences in analyses of mass incarceration and police violence. She has taught a wide range of classes in both philosophy and women, gender, and sexuality studies. These classes include but are not limited to philosophy of law, race, class, gender and mass incarceration, social and political philosophy, ethics, logic, philosophy of the Black experience, Black feminism(s), feminist theory, women’s violences through time, and controversies in love and sex.

2019-2020 Diversity and Inclusion Postdoctoral Fellow

Usha Vishnuvajjala - English
Usha Vishnuvajjala studied Government and Politics at the University of Maryland and the University of Exeter (UK) and worked in a Congressional office before turning to the study of medieval literature. After earning an MA in Literature at American University and a PhD in English at Indiana University, she taught first-year writing at Coppin State University, American University, and Tulane University before coming to Temple as a postdoc.Her research focuses on gender and friendship in medieval English and French literature and on post-medieval representations of the Middle Ages, especially medieval women, and her book Feminist Medievalisms is under contract with Arc Humanities Press/Amsterdamn University Press. This fall, she will begin an appointment as a fixed-term lecturer at Cardiff University in Wales.theory, women’s violences through time, and controversies in love and sex.