Who We Are
Joshua Calhoun
Co-Director & Co-Founder
Joshua Calhoun is an Associate Professor of English at the UW-Madison who specializes in Shakespeare, 16th- and 17th-century poetry, and the history of media. As a Faculty Affiliate at the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, he also teaches courses in the environmental humanities. In his teaching and research, he gets to explore three things he loves (and thinks everyone else should love, too): Shakespeare, old books, and nature. His work has appeared in Adirondack Life, Environmental Philosophy, Outside Magazine, PMLA, and Shakespeare Studies, and he recently published The Nature of the Page: Poetry, Papermaking, and Ecology in Renaissance England (UPenn Press, 2020). @awayandback
Sarah Marty
Co-Director & Co-Founder
Sarah Marty is Co-Director of the Bolz Center for Arts Administration in the Wisconsin School of Business, Program Director for the Madison Early Music Festival, a Faculty Affiliate at UW Division of the Arts, and Producing Artistic Director for Four Seasons Theatre. As a producer she enjoys collaborating with campus and community partners, whether working with the Director of the Marching Band for the UW Varsity Band Show or welcoming the Dalai Lama to the Overture Center for the Arts. A trained musician and stage manager, she recently recorded a Swissconsin album of accordion music with her grandmother, a project that was featured in Wisconsin Public Television's Wisconsin Life.
Cecelia Alfonso-Stokes
Assistant Director
Cecelia is a PhD student in Literary Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research examines American and Latinx popular culture and literature and how art and cultural production articulate Latinx identity in relation to American political projects. A shameless enthusiast of major IP, Cecelia loves to talk superheroes and occasionally guest hosts at the MCUniversity Podcast. Watching movies with her husband, Brent, and their kids, Rosa and Henry, is one of her favorite modes of relaxation.
Marek
Makowski
Editorial Assistant
Marek Makowski is a PhD candidate in Literary Studies at UW-Madison. He studies how experiments in contemporary literature respond to global crisis, and he leads writing collaborations for the Office of Sustainability. His writing has appeared in venues such as The New Republic, Public Books, LA Review of Books, Hyperallergic, World Literature Today, and The Chicago Tribune.
Robert
Possehl
Papermaker and Collaborative Art Specialist
Itinerant imagist, community collaborator, and educator Robert Possehl is best known for his place-based papermaking projects such as the Black Hawk Paper Trail Project, a body of work that gives voice to the landscapes’ memory through fibers harvested from significant sites along the 700-mile trail. Since 2014, Possehl has collaborated with Calhoun on various educational projects focused on giving students hands-on lessons in the history of papermaking. Possehl has an MFA in book and paper arts from Columbia College and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
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Thom
Van Camp
Project and Podcast Consultant
Thom Van Camp is a PhD candidate in Literary Studies at UW-Madison. His research takes a presentist approach to 19th century British romanticism and its entanglements with abolition, reading romantic poetry alongside current work in Black Studies. Thom also served as the previous Holding History Assistant Director.
Student Curator Updates
How HH Alums are Carrying the Bookish Conversations Beyond the Borders of the University & the State
Tricia Siy
Student Curator 2019-2020
Majoring in Microbiology with a certificate in Global Health
I am finishing up my third year working with the Medical Entomology Laboratory on campus as a researcher of tick-borne and mosquito-borne pathogens. Over the past few months, I have been working on two publications for my work pertaining to the ecology of tick-borne pathogens. During my final year as an undergraduate, I will be preparing for the MCAT, writing essays, applying to medical schools, figuring out what I want to pursue during my gap year, and hopefully reconnecting with people who have impacted me during my time at UW-Madison.
Past & Present Student Curators
Rosie Brezynksi
Computer Science
(Graduated 2019)
Julia Buskirk
Conservation Biology &
Creative Writing
Kaydian Campbell
MA in Information Studies & English Literary Studies (Graduated 2018)
Jenna Contreras
Middle Childhood/Early Adolescence Education (Graduated 2018)
Adam DeDobbelaere
Philosophy & Economics
Stuart Deets
Art History, History, & English (Graduated 2018)
Allie Dunham
History & History of Science
(Graduated 2019)
Keith Gabler
PhD Student, English
Alicia Lawson
Anthropology & History
Marek Makowski
PhD Student, English
Max Mindorff
Political Science & Communication Arts
Matthew Noojin
PhD Student, Information School
Shawna Rivedal
Molecular Biology & Creative Writing (Graduated 2019)
Patrick Rosenberg
International Studies and East Asian Studies (Graduated Dec 2015)
Tricia Siy
Microbiology
Laura Schmidt
PhD Student, Information School
Alex Smith
Biology (Graduated 2018)
Kaylee Sorrells
Evolutionary Biology & Spanish
John Spoerl
Math and Astrophysics (Graduated 2018)
Katy Tyllo
English (Graduated 2019)
Tegan Vail
English (Graduated 2016)
Ilango Villoth
English (Graduated 2019)
Eliza Weisberg
African American Studies & English (Graduated 2017)
Ellen Wieland
Majoring in Statistics with a certificate in Studio Design (3D-Design)
Anna Heinen
Art & Environmental Studies
Ryan Hussey
English/Creative Writing and Pre-Med (Graduated 2016)
Ethan Kay
Mathematics, Philosophy, Physics, English, Astronomy-Physics, & Political Science (Graduated 2016)
Sam Landowski
Political Science (Graduated 2019)