Clapperton Mavhunga named to inaugural group of Poesis Fellows
 

A New Initiative
Clapperton Mavhunga, Assistant Professor of Science, Technology and Society (STS), has been selected to be among the first group of Poesis Fellows, a new initiative based at the Institute for Public Knowledge, located at New York University.

“This is a tremendous honor and opportunity for Clapperton," says David Mindell, Professor of the History of Manufacturing and Technology, and Director of STS.  "It provides him access to an innovative new network of colleagues and mentors, from a wide range of disciplines and countries, with whom to work through research problems. I’m sure he will make great contributions, and connect our program broadly around the world.”

Rethinking Cities
The Fellowship enables Mavhunga to join a community of researchers and practitioners engaged in rethinking the basic ways in which people make and remake the world we hold in common. The focus for the initial fellowship group is on cities. The fellowship consists of a stipend and participation in a small, international network of junior scholars and senior mentors who meet regularly to discuss research. 

About Poesis
Poesis is directed by Richard Sennett, University Professor of the Humanities, and Craig Calhoun, University Professor of the Social Sciences and Director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University. A group of senior fellows is being formed, including Ash Amin (geography, Durham University), Peter Claussen (engineer, Dresden), Gerald Frug (Harvard Law School), Bruno Latour (sociologist, Sciences Po, Paris), Klaus Mainzer (physicist and information scientist, Munich), Saskia Sassen (sociologist, Columbia University), Alejandro Zarea-Polo (architect, Spain and Britain).

A Community of Colleagues and Mentors
The Fellowship will provide support for collective activities including group meetings, opportunities to share work in progress, and publications. Each Fellow will be assigned an individual mentor from the group of Senior Fellows. Pairings will be made across fields and practice—an architect may be mentored by an expert in particle physics—with the explicit understanding that this will challenge disciplinary thinking. Mentors will also be encouraged to invite their Fellows to engage with their own work, and Fellows will have opportunities to inform the current projects of their mentors