Humanities & the Arts Blog
Maya Smoot
Theatre/Speech
Assistant Professor
Bio
Maya Smoot is originally from the Bay Area and earned an MFA in Acting from UC Irvine. She has worked as an actor regionally and in New York City and is a proud member of SAG-AFTRA. Maya has taught acting, voice, speech, scene study, and Shakespeare at Chapman University, Stella Adler Art of Acting LA, Crash Acting Studio, Encompass Collective (affinity-space actor training), the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in NYC, and was a guest teacher at Yale. She has also worked as an Artistic Associate at the New Swan Shakespeare… Read More »
Brittney Currie
Philosophy
Assistant Professor
Bio
Britt Currie is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at CCNY. I’m a philosopher of cognitive science and moral psychology. My research focuses on the nature of empathy, the role of social and moral norms in everyday interactions, and the psychology of moral decision-making; I also consider whether social cognitive processes can be, or ought to be, realized in artificial agents or systems. Recently, I've been considering what a trauma-informed account of empathy might look like. Some of my research is empirical, and much of it… Read More »
Lucas Iberico Lozada
English
Assistant Professor
Bio
Lucas Iberico Lozada is an incoming Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at City College. His writing—short fiction, reporting, essays, and criticism—has been published in a wide variety of outlets, including The New York Times, The Nation, and the Brazilian magazine Piauí. He has worked as a reporter for the Reuters newswire in São Paulo, Lima, and New York, and as an editor at Popula and Paste. A graduate of the MFA program at Temple University, he is ABD in the Creative Writing & Literature program at the… Read More »
Opal Gay
Black Studies
Assistant Professor
Bio
Opal Gay is an artist and scholar committed to advancing health equity for Black, queer, and transgender people. They earned their PhD in Sociology from Georgia State University in 2025 and have collected years of academic and applied experience.
Opal has published their work across several esteemed journals, including The Journal of Bisexuality, Psychology & Sexuality, and The International Journal of Transgender Health. They have also worked as a policy researcher with community organizations such as the Southern Center for… Read More »
Jose de Jesus Rodriguez
Art
Assistant Professor
Bio
Jose de Jesus Rodriguez (b. Salinas, CA) works with an array of painting and printmaking media and techniques. He holds an MFA in Painting/Printmaking from the Yale School of Art and a BA in Fine Arts from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Rodriguez is an Assistant Professor in the Art Department at the City College of New York. Since 2022, he has served as a Fresco Instructor at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, where he was also a participant in 2017.
1. What questions, ideas, or creative concerns are… Read More »
"Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it." — Haruki Murakami
What does it mean to live life to the fullest? What makes a life worthy of remembering? Often, more times than not, the concept of life and what it means to live lingers on our minds. These thoughts awaken our consciousness and force us to question what it means to be.
In the midst of January, as winter break came to an end, Life Writing 36800, taught by Professor Elizabeth Mazzola, began as one of several internship-integrated courses facilitated by the HELPS Program (Humanities Experiential… Read More »
Life Writing, a course taught by Professor Elizabeth Mazzola in partnership with the HELPS Program (Humanities Experiential Learning Partnership Seminars), allowed students to examine the ins and outs of writing a biography while also analyzing writers who tell stories of a place or person in deeply unique ways. Throughout the semester, my classmates and I interned at The New Jewish Home. We worked closely with residents, documenting lives through memory, observation, and conversation. Our final projects became more than biographies; they transformed into reflections on history,… Read More »
For her third and final piece on her experience as an intern through the Publishing Certificate Program and Humanities Internships program, student writer Sophie Torres reflects on the closing chapter of her undergraduate career and her internship with PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing Program. In this essay, she considers how the transition from classroom learning to professional experience helped her build confidence, adaptability, and a clearer sense of purpose as she prepares for life after graduation.
As the semester comes to an end and summer inches closer,… Read More »
On April 29, the CCNY Humanities Internships program (HI) came to life in its most meaningful form, not through a brochure, not through an email, but through the voices of students who had lived it. Beginning in 2021 with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the HI Program has placed humanities students in paid internships at New York City's top cultural and nonprofit organizations. After a soft launch, the program is now gaining momentum across campus, and a group of students from the Advertising and Personal Relations (Ad/PR) program were eager to come alongside help… Read More »
Step into the Bronx Museum and you will find an emotional landscape built from metal, glass, and fragmented time. CRT monitors glow atop metal stands, their colorful cables physically mapping the complexities of diasporic memory. Faced with a lack of surviving photographs from her mother’s childhood in rural Peru, Diana Guerra—a Peruvian American lens-based artist and City College alumna—had to build her own archive by sourcing a 1960s German educational film about a young rural Peruvian girl. This culminating work of the 2024 AIM Fellowship at the Bronx Museum weaves those found… Read More »
Last Updated: 06/22/2026 03:47