Faculty International Research Engagement (FIRE) Mini Grants
The Office of International Initiatives is pleased to announce a limited number of competitive mini grants for the 2025-2026 academic year to support faculty initiatives aiming to build or strengthen relationships with international partners in scholarly and creative work. We welcome proposals from all disciplines and areas of scholarly work.
We seek to support activities that contribute to an ongoing effort to build focused research connections, rather than for example funding conference travel to an annual conference that's being held in an international venue this year.
This funding adds support for research to our portfolio of seed grants for faculty initiatives in study abroad and virtual exchange.
The upper limit for these mini grants is $2000. You may not receive more than one in any fiscal year. Funds must be spent within the fiscal year in which they are awarded. FIRE grants are necessarily modest and are meant to supplement other professional development funds. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis throughout the year, beginning immediately.
Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis throughout the year, beginning immediately, until funds are exhausted. The deadline to apply is June 1, 2025.
The Office of International Initiatives (OII) is pleased to announce our lecture series to highlight faculty working in an international capacity.
Supported by a FIRE mini-grant, this project examines how Hungarian and southern U.S. histories of region, race, and belonging have mutually informed one another in literary and cultural spheres. Beginning from Lajos Kossuth’s visit to the U.S. in the nineteenth century and continuing through events of the 1950s, including the Hungarian Revolution and southern desegregation, Caison investigates how white southerners narrated Hungarian causes for their own political ends and how Hungarians mapped events in the U.S. onto their respective political causes.
Lecturer
Gina Caison is the Kenneth M. England Associate Professor of Southern Literature at Georgia State University. From 2020-22 she served as president of the Society for the Study of Southern Literature, and during the 2020-21 academic year, she was a research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at Central European University in Budapest.
Her first book Red States: Indigeneity, Settler Colonialism, and Southern Studies (UGA Press, 2018) won the 2019 C. Hugh Holman Award for the best book in southern literary studies. Along with Lisa Hinrichsen and Stephanie Rountree, she is co-editor of Small-Screen Souths: Region, Identity, and the Cultural Politics of Television (LSU Press, 2017) and Remediating Region: New Media and the U.S. South (LSU Press, 2021). Her latest book, Erosion: American Environments & the Anxiety of Disappearance (2024), is available from Duke University Press.
Artist residencies give artists time and space to create new work in a new environment. Some artists approach a residency with a pre-planned project that they use residency time and space to realize. Others use the opportunity to explore new ideas that emerge in response to the site and character of the residency program. In her presentation Landscapes, Portals, and Other Corners of the Universe Professor Stanford will discuss her residency experience with La Wayaka Current in the Atacama desert of Chile and the work she produced that was inspired by the unique landscape and culture of the world’s driest desert.
Lecturer
Ruth Stanford received an MFA from Carnegie Mellon University in 2005 and a BFA from the University of Texas at Austin in 2000. She also holds BS and MS degrees in zoology and worked as an endangered species ecologist prior to beginning a career in art.
Prof. Stanford’s art practice revolves around installation and site-specific sculpture, with occasional forays into other media. Much of her work explores history and notions of presence/absence, permanence/impermanence, fiction/reality, and conscious/subconscious. She has exhibited in traditional and nontraditional venues, including The Mattress Factory and the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh; The Creative Research Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin; Atlanta’s Center for Civil and Human Rights; Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh; The Project Room in Windhoek, Namibia; Kyoto International Community House in Kyoto, Japan; and the National Art Gallery of Zambia in Livingstone, Zambia. Ongoing academic interests include the history, politics, and aesthetics of memorialization, particularly in Africa.
Prof. Stanford’s work in the Atacama Desert of Chile focused on unique elements of local culture and the importance of the Atacama region in astronomical research. Her presentation, titled Landscapes, Portals, and other Corners of the Universe, will present aspects of her residency experience and the artwork produced during her time in the desert.
Join Dr. Sue Kasun for an exciting conversation about reimagining education through Indigenous perspectives. Discover how collaborative work with Indigenous communities in Mexico is creating powerful new approaches to learning and solving today's biggest challenges.
Dr. Kasun will share groundbreaking insights from her National Science Foundation research, highlighting innovative curriculum that transforms how students think about our planet. From shifting climate anxiety to building meaningful connections with the natural world, this talk reveals how Indigenous knowledge offers fresh, hopeful solutions to complex global issues.
Through stories of collaboration with Nahua and Totonaco communities, you'll explore how traditional wisdom can spark creativity, resilience, and hope in our education systems. This is your chance to see how cross-cultural understanding can reshape our approach to learning and problem-solving.
Lecturer
Sue Kasun is Professor of Language & Culture Education in the GSU College of Education & Human Development. Her work centers ways of knowing—how people engage the world from different spaces and knowledge systems. Most recently, her work has cross-walked Indigenous knowledge with U.S. formal education through partnerships with Nahua and Totonaco peoples living in Mexico. Kasun has published two nationally-award winning books, the most recent of which is titled, Decolonizing Study Abroad through the Identities of Latinx Students: A Manifesto to Reclaim Identities and Heritage by Routledge. She has also taken study abroad students to Mexico nearly every year over the last ten years, herself a first generation college graduate and product of the transformative role of politically critical study abroad programs. She is a Fulbright Fellow (2017-2018) and was recently awarded a National Science Foundation grant (2024-2027) related to her work with Indigenous knowledge.
Join us for an engaging lecture by William (Bill) Nichols, Associate Dean of the Honors College and Professor in Spanish Literature and Culture at Georgia State University. In his latest work, "The Paradox of Paradise: Creative Destruction and the Rise of Urban Coastal Tourism in Contemporary Spanish Culture", Nichols delves into the evolution of urban coastal tourism in Spain, revealing how destinations like Torremolinos and Benidorm transformed from local gems to international hotspots. We will explore the chapter, "Scenes from Paradise: Postcards, the Tourist Gaze, and the Generation of Dreams," that examines the interplay between tourism, cultural production, and the dreams they inspire. Don't miss this opportunity to explore the cultural landscape of Spain through the lens of creativity and economic transformation!
Lecturer
William Nichols currently serves as Associate Dean of the Honors College at Georgia State University. His home department is World Languages and Cultures where he is a Professor of Spanish Cultural Studies. He served as the Chair of that department from 2013-2021. He also served as the Founding Director of the Center for Urban Language Teaching and Research (CULTR), a Title VI National Foreign Language Resource Center funded through the U.S. Department of Education from 2014-2022. Dr. Nichols has been active in the Association of Language Departments and was a member of that association’s Executive Committee from 2015-18. His current research focuses on urban space, tourism, and globalization as it is represented and explored in 20th and 21st century Spanish culture. His most recent book is titled Paradise Lost: Commodified Ludic Spaces and the Rise of Urban Coastal Tourism in Contemporary Spain and was published with Vanderbilt University Press in 2023.
In 2024, a team of scholars from Georgia State University led a Fulbright-Hays Group Project Abroad to Brazil for a four-week seminar.
The team led a group of 16 educators and students in the humanities and social sciences to study Afro-Brazilian culture. This Global Education Initiative project seeks to remove the boundaries between the experiences of African Americans and Black people throughout the African diaspora. Join us to learn about the program.
Panelist
Leslie Marsh
Leslie Marsh is Professor and Chair of the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Georgia State University. She specializes in Film and Media Studies, focusing on Brazil and more broadly on questions of citizenship. She serves as the co-editor of a series on Latin American Film for SUNY Press. In addition to publishing journal articles and editing special editions, she has authored Brazilian Women’s Filmmaking: From Dictatorship to Democracy (2012), Branding Brazil: Transforming Citizenship on Screen (2021) and co-edited The Middle Class in Emerging Societies: Consumers, Lifestyles and Markets (2016). Her current monograph focuses on Black Cinema in Brazil.
Panelist
Elizabeth J. West
Elizabeth J. West is Professor of English and the John B. and Elena Diaz-Verson Amos Distinguished Chair in English Letters at Georgia State University. Having served previously as Executive Director of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association and Treasurer of the College Language Association, West is presently Director of Academics for Georgia State University’s Center for Studies on Africa and Its Diaspora (CSAD). She is also a member of The University of Mississippi Medical Center’s Asylum Hill Research Consortium and the Advisory Board of The Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies (Johannes Gutenberg University).
West is PI for “Intersectionality in the American South,” a Mellon Foundation Grant (2022-25) supporting the establishment of cross-institutional collectives to advance research, teaching, and public engagement in Intersectionality Studies; and she is director of the CSAD-American Family Insurance initiative focusing on Financial Literacy in the public sector (2021-23). She is a former AAUW Fellow, DAAD (Johannes Gütenberg University) Fellow, and scholar in residence at Dartmouth College in the Department of AAAS.
West’s scholarship focuses on interdisciplinary approaches to studies of early African Diaspora Literatures of the Americas with particular emphasis on spirituality and gender in these works and their connections to the present. Winner of the 2023 College Language Association Book Award, her recent book, Finding Francis: One Family’s Journey from Slavery to Freedom (USC Press 2022) melds biography and historiography in its exploration of slaving and forced migration on Black family and kinship formations in the U.S. South. She is the author of African Spirituality in Black Women’s Fiction: Threaded Visions of Memory, Community, Nature and Being (Lexington 2011), a work distinct in its employment of a diachronic lens to examine specific African spiritual sensibilities traceable from early to modern Black women’s writings. Her essays and shorter works can be found in critical anthologies and journals such as MELUS, JTAS, Amerikastudien, CLAJ, PALARA, Religions, boundary 2, Womanist, Black Magnolias, South Atlantic Review, and South Central Review. Among her edited projects are the coedited anthology, Literary Expressions of African Spirituality (Lexington 2013), the co-edited section, “Religion and Spirituality,” in the Routledge Reader of African American Rhetoric (2018), and the co-edited Roman & Littlefield/Lexington book series, Black Diasporic Worlds: Origins and Evolutions from New World Slaving.
Panelist
Dr. Rosita Scerbo
Rosita Scerbo is an Assistant Professor of Afro-Latix Studies in the Institute for Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Georgia State University. She is also an affiliate faculty in the Department of Africana Studies. Her research interests include Afro-Latinx/Diasporic Literature & Culture, the Black Woman’s Experience in the Hispanic World, Intersectional and Transnational Feminism, Queer and Decolonial Theories, Race, Ethnicity, and Social Movements in Latin America, Visual Culture, and Digital Humanities. She obtained her Ph.D. in Latin American/Latinx Visual Studies from Arizona State University. She has lived and worked as an educator in different countries, including Buenos Aires (Argentina), Yucatán (Mexico), Sevilla (Spain), and Calabria (Italy). Through her teaching, mentoring, service, and research she advocates for ethnic minoritized groups and other underrepresented communities in the U.S. and Latin America. Her latest publications and teaching endeavors focus on Intersectional and Transnational ARTivism and the Cultural Aesthetics of Black Latina Women.
Dr. Scerbo is the author of the book LATINAS ON THE MARGINS. QueerARTivism and TRANSdisciplinarity: Towards a Politicization of the Visual Autobiography of Invisible Women published by Peter Lang in 2021. She is also the co-editor and author of the book AfroLatinas and LatiNegras: Culture, Identity, and Struggle from an Intersectional Perspective., published by Lexington Books in the series Critical Africana Studies in 2022. In addition, Dr. Scerbo is currently working on a third book project tentatively titled Gendered Aesthetics of Blackness: The Afrodescendant Woman in Latin American Diasporic Visual Art.
Panelist
Dr. Lakeyta Bonnette-Bailey
Dr. Lakeyta Bonnette-Bailey, a Professor of Africana Studies at Georgia State University, also co-directs the Center for the Advancement of Students and Alumni (CASA). Her research focuses on Hip Hop culture, political behavior, and African-American politics, with current work exploring political rap music and racial attitudes. She has authored and co-edited multiple volumes, including recent works on Hip Hop and social justice, and has published over 5 articles and 7 book chapters. Dr. Bonnette-Bailey has received several awards, hosted influential conferences, and appeared in prominent media outlets, furthering discussions on rap music, social justice, and political impact.
The Office of International Initiatives will host Dr. Brennan Collins, Associate Director of CETLOE, and Panther Lattimore, a GSU senior studying psychology, for our first FIRE talk of the fall.
They will be talking about their work on the Atlanta Rap Map, which took them to Marseille to participate in the MarsTlantaexhibit. The exhibit, created by Djellali El Ouzeri (aka DJ Diel) explores the connections between Marseille and Atlanta.
Dr. Lakeyta Bonnette-Bailey, noted scholar of hip hop studies and politics, from Georgia State's department of Africana studies, will facilitate the discussion.
Panelists
Panther Lattimore
My name is Panther Lattimore (pictured left) and I am studying Psychology as a Senior at Georgia State University. Since the Spring semester of 2022, I have worked alongside Brennan as a student lead on the Atlanta Rap Map, which ultimately provided the opportunity for me to speak about and present the project in Marseille, France this summer.
Brennan Collins
Brennan Collins is the Associate Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning, and Online Education at Georgia State University for High-Impact Practices, Digital Pedagogy, and Atlanta Studies. He is also Director of the Teagle Foundation funded Experiential, Project-Based, Interdisciplinary (EPIC) program. The interdisciplinary nature and technology focus of these programs allow him to work with a diverse faculty in exploring inventive pedagogies. He is particularly interested in creating transdisciplinary and interinstitutional projects and platforms that explore the urban landscape to develop student critical thinking and create opportunities for community engagement. This work explores the intersection of the Humanities with the emerging fields of mapping, digital heritage, data visualization and curation, and immersive learning.
Moderator
Dr. Lakeyta Bonnette-Bailey
Dr. Lakeyta Bonnette-Bailey, a Professor of Africana Studies at Georgia State University, also co-directs the Center for the Advancement of Students and Alumni (CASA). Her research focuses on Hip Hop culture, political behavior, and African-American politics, with current work exploring political rap music and racial attitudes. She has authored and co-edited multiple volumes, including recent works on Hip Hop and social justice, and has published over 5 articles and 7 book chapters. Dr. Bonnette-Bailey has received several awards, hosted influential conferences, and appeared in prominent media outlets, furthering discussions on rap music, social justice, and political impact.