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Thursday, December 18, 2025

Have a safe and restful holiday break! See everyone in 2026!

1787 - New Jersey becomes the third state to ratify the US Constitution.

1892 - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet "The Nutcracker" premieres in Saint Petersburg, Russia, now the world's most performed ballet.

1966 - Dr. Seuss' animated special "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" airs for 1st time on CBS.

2009 - James Cameron's "Avatar" is released in the US and ultimately becomes highest-grossing film of all time.

GW meets 2025 fossil fuel divestment goal, set to hit interim carbon-neutrality target by year-end.
GW Hatchet.

Hyprov, Heretics, and Go-Go: City Lights for Dec. 18–24. Washington City Paper.

The Best Art Films of 2025. Hyperallergic.

Mining the Museum: New MCHC Exhibit Explores our ‘Revolutionary’ State. BmoreArt.

Image credit: Jasmine Cannon

For the last newsletter of 2025, we feature GW alum Jasmine Daria Cannon (she/they). Cannon is a Black feminist curator, writer, and public historian whose work centers the lives and legacies of late 19th and early 20th-century African American women. Through storytelling, scholarship, and curating, Jasmine celebrates the vibrancy of historic Black communities and highlights their enduring cultural, political, and intellectual contributions to the nation’s history.

She currently serves as the Curatorial Assistant for Voices of the Southern Lowcountry at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (NMAH), an exhibition exploring Gullah Geechee cultural and environmental heritage. Previously, Jasmine was the Jefferson Curator at NMAH, the Women’s History Pre-Doctoral Fellow at the National Women’s History Museum, and the Pope House Manager with the City of Raleigh Museum. Her ongoing research and curatorial practice examine themes of Black womanhood, place, and community memory. In collaboration with Much Love Always Productions, she is co-developing Build It and They Will Come, a documentary chronicling the legacy of Mary Smith Kelsey Peake, a pioneering 19th-century educator whose work helped lay the foundation for Black education in Hampton, VA during and after the Civil War.

Jasmine’s scholarship and research has been shared through presentations at the Graduate Association of African American History (GAAH) and the Association of Black Women Historians (ABWH). Her curatorial research and writing will soon appear in Collective Yearning: Black Women Artists from the Zimmerli Museum, Dana Women Artist Series, forthcoming from Rutgers University Press in 2026.

Beyond her museum work, Jasmine is the founder and owner of Kindred Bookshop, a Black feminist pop-up bookstore amplifying diverse voices and fostering community through literature, creativity, rest, and joy. Her innovative programming creates intentional spaces for Black and Brown readers to connect as Kinfolx, building community through storytelling and shared imagination. Jasmine’s community curation practice is deeply informed by her earlier work as the founder of Brown Girls Love STEM (BGLS), a digital platform supporting women and girls of color in STEM fields, where she also served as the Preceptor for the Feeling Good, Healing Better podcast, a health communications project educating Black millennials on wellness and health.

A proud alumna of North Carolina State University, Jasmine holds dual MAs in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Rutgers University and American Studies from The George Washington University.

Check back in 2026 for more department events and programs!!

Check back in 2026 for more department kudos!!

Call for Applications: The William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan welcomes applications for 2026-27 research fellowships. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Jan. 15, 2026.

Call for Papers: Remembering Historical Violence Symposium at UMD is currently accepting proposals for individual papers, organized panels, roundtables, and non-traditional presentations. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Jan. 16, 2026.

Call for Papers: The Twenty-first Annual Yale University American Art Graduate Symposium is currently accepting abstracts for their upcoming event. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Jan. 31, 2026.

Call for Applications: The Massachusetts Historical Society is accepting applications for a variety of research fellowships for the 2026-2027 academic year. Click here to learn more // Deadline: varies.

Call for Papers: Critical Ethnic Studies is currently accepting submissions for a special issue devoted to the transnational exploration of caste domination and anti-caste social movements and theories, with emphasis on the interrelation of caste and race in the history and geography of empire. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Feb. 2, 2026.

Call for Applications: The Gay & Lesbian Review (The G&LR) announces the 4th annual Charles S. Longcope Jr. Writers and Artists Grant for emerging scholars, writers, and artists across disciplines and fields that make a contribution to LGBTQ+ scholarship or the arts. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Feb. 15, 2026.

Call for Applications: The Eudora Welty Foundation and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) announce the 2026 Eudora Welty Research Fellowship to encourage and support research using the Eudora Welty Collection and related materials at the MDAH. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Mar. 6, 2026.

Call for Applications: The George Washington Upward Bound Summer Institute is seeking instructors for the summer courses. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Mar. 16, 2026.

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