2108 G Street NW, Washington, DC 20052

Thursday, February 5, 2026

1924 - The 1st Winter Olympic Games close at Chamonix, France

1954 - Disney’s “Peter Pan” opens at the Roxy Theater in NYC.

2018 - American singer-songwriter Paul Simon announces his farewell tour.

2024 - Taylor Swift becomes the first artist to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year four times with her album “Midnights”.

Community warns potential FY2027 budget cuts will jeopardize GW’s academic mission. GW Hatchet.

He Was Laid Off at The Washington Post After Working There 60 Years. The New York Times.

Rik Freeman’s Personal Touch. Washington City Paper.

Image credit: Khadijah Akeem-Cox

In this newsletter edition we spotlight Khadijah Akeem-Cox, a third-year PhD student studying the relationship between religion, gender, place, and Blackness in Washington, DC. Prior to enrolling at GW, Khadijah earned her bachelor’s degree in Africana Studies and History from Lafayette College, and her Master’s in History and Education from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Khadijah’s MA essay, entitled “History on Stage: The Story and Legacy of DC’s Footsteps Dance Program, 1992-2017,” explores the legacy of the affordable and collaborative multidimensional dance program, which held annual performances and resisted Eurocentric ideas of dance by celebrating Black history and promoting Black empowerment. Khadijah presented her work at the 2024 American Studies Association (ASA) conference in Baltimore, MD. Writing about and researching a program she participated in since the age of five has led her to her current project that centers Black Muslim women—Khadijah positions these women as change agents and community organizers whose actions resist Islamophobic and misogynistic misconceptions. 

Khadijah’s dissertation research will investigate and map understudied social and cultural histories of Washington, DC, particularly the proliferation of Islam amongst Black Americans and Black Muslim women’s involvement in community formations. In her recent research seminar paper, “Black Muslim Matriarchs: Building Community in and around DC during the 1980s and 1990s,” she examines how through their shared identities of being Muslim, being Black, and becoming mothers, Black Muslim women identified marginalization within DC’s existing Muslim community and created alternative spaces to practice their deen (religion) while forging new communities. 

Khadijah is developing ways to bridge her academic interests with restoring joy and personal freedom. When she isn’t setting new personal records on her beloved bicycle named “Black Beauty,” she is working on her poetic project “Salt and Other Fragments,” which blends themes of loss, trauma, and grief. Recently, she began outlining a future project that examines the way we experience death as a disruption in conversation with capitalism, neoliberal politics, necropower, and biopolitics.

Ziffren Lecture
Department of World Religions

The Department of World Religions presents the 2026 Abbie Ziffren Endowed Lecture:  "When the Elephants Fight, the Grass Suffers: A Contemporary Account of 'Religious' Competition and Conflict among the Yoruba of Nigeria," featuring Oludamini Ogunnaike, Associate Professor of African Religious Thought and Democracy at the University of Virginia.

When: Thursday, February 5, 2026; 5:30-7:30 PM
Where: 805 21st St NW, MPA, B07

RSVP here!

Carceral Renderings
GW University Seminar Series

This GW University Seminar Series is convened by Dr. Anna Jayne Kimmel and Professor Sidney Williams, MFA. Each session challenges normative narratives of the prison-industrial-complex through interdisciplinary methods of the arts and humanities. The workshops of 2025-2026 extend the conversation established in 2024-2025, the inaugural iteration which culminated in the world premiere of REND, a play from Kenneth Reams, produced in collaboration with Howard University and Voices Unbarred. 

Seminar 1: Understanding the Prison as a Site of Hidden Warfare and Abolitionist Possibility (February 5, 2026)
Seminar 2: On Carceral Shifts: Collaborative Editorial Methods (February 20, 2026)
Seminar 3: Artistic Due Process: Collaboration Across Carceral & Cultural Barriers (March 3, 2026)

RSVP here!

Institute for Middle East Studies Annual Conference
Tech Futures: The Science of Life, Death, and Ecology in the Middle East

When: Friday, April 17, 2026; 9:00-4:00 PM
Where: 1957 E St NW, Room 602

RSVP here!

Alum Amber Wiley (PhD '11) recently participated in a book talk with the Yale Club of DC and Yale Black Alumni Association DMV Chapter for her recent monograph, Model Schools in the Model City. Wiley is pictured below with Prof. Osman! 

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: The DC History Conference is currently accepting papers for their 52nd convening. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Feb. 9, 2026.

Call for Papers: The Parsons/Cooper Hewitt Graduate Symposium is currently accepting papers for their upcoming symposium titled "The Environmental Turn in Art and Design History." Click here to learn more // Deadline: Feb. 15, 2026.

Call for Applications: The WGSS Department at Dartmouth currently has four faculty searches. Post-Doc Fellow in Asian American Studies; Post-Doc Fellow in Gender Studies and Public Policy; Teaching Fellow in Transgender Studies; Teaching Fellow in Asian American History and WGSS // Deadline: Feb. 15, 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: CCAS's Luther Rice Undergraduate Research Fellowship is currently accepting applications. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Feb. 27, 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 Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum is accepting applications for their Summer 2026 Internships. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Mar. 16, 2026.

Call for Applications: CCAS's Research Showcase is currently accepting abstracts for the research showcase taking place on April 15, 2026. Click here to learn more // Deadline: Mar. 20, 2026.

Need Support?

Like what you see? Have spotlights, kudos, events, or opportunities that you would like to share? We want to hear from you! Navigate to our feedback form using the link below, or more simply, forward your tip to amst@gwu.edu.