Drafting Stages is a series of intimate conversations with speakers working inside and outside of academia and at different points in their careers about writing as an evolving and non-linear process. Focusing on conditions, inspirations, and methods, each speaker will offer personal insight into their processes and the messiness and vulnerabilities of drafting stages.

The invited speaker for this session is Dr. Melissa Rosario (she/they), a mixed-race queer nonbinary femme who lives and works in Puerto Rico. Drawing on their training as an anthropologist and her own journey of self-healing, Melissa founded and leads the Center for Embodied Pedagogy and Action (CEPA). CEPA is a practice-based initiative dedicated to the decolonization of mind-body-spirit of organizers, artists, and healers. It is a space for diaspora and island-based Boricuas and close allies who want to co-create a culture of reclamation that transforms inheritances and patterns into collective liberation. They understand it to be a tool for healing as it allows us to create new possibilities and agreements for our future while also opening space to speak truths that have remained on the margins of our awareness. She has published in Anthropology and Humanism, AnthroNow, and Curriculum Inquiry and is a co-author of Decolonizing for Organizers, a practice-based manual for activists unlearning and healing from colonization. Her first book is under review and is tentatively titled Another Country: Reclaiming Freedom in Puerto Rico.

The conversation will be facilitated by Dr. Gina Athena Ulysse, Professor in the Feminist Studies Department at UCSC. This event is presented by GANAS Graduate Pathways and VOCES and is co-sponsored by The Humanities Institute.

About the PhD+ Workshop Series

Join us for the seventh year of PhD+ Workshops, hosted by The Humanities Institute. We meet monthly to discuss possible career paths for PhDs, internship possibilities, grant/fellowships, work/life balance, elements of style, online identity issues, and much, much more.