Fourteen scholars will participate in the third round of the Franco Family Institute for Liberal Arts and the Public Good’s Research Innovation Collaboratives. These “labs” build on the University’s strategic framework by encouraging research outside of departmental and institutional confines in order to radically reimagine how this work informs, influences, and inspires innovative scholarship. Each collaborative will consist of a group of scholars pursuing a core question (or a small set of closely related questions). Collaboratives will foster research, teaching, and outreach, deepening connections across disciplines and bringing the insights of the liberal arts to public life.
In partnership with three of the University’s Strategic Initiatives, the Franco Institute is funding seven new interdisciplinary collaboratives.
Arts Collaboratives (co-sponsored by the ND Arts Initiative):
Through a project titled “Archipelagos of Race,” Thomas Anderson, professor of Romance Languages and Literatures, and Xavier Navarro Aquino, assistant professor of English, will investigate the artistic, linguistic, and cultural dimensions of race and ethnicity in the Caribbean through theoretical inquiry and artistic output.
Tatiana Reinoza, associate professor of art history, and history professor Karen Graubart seek to integrate humanities studies to ask broad questions, often related to policy, in their lab titled “Central American Racial Formations.” They believe that integrating humanities-based analysis with questions more commonly addressed through social sciences and policy will produce deeper and more people-centered scholarship and open new paths for understanding social injuries, connectivities, and conflicts.
Global Catholic Research Collaboratives (co-sponsored by the ND Global Catholic Research Initiative):
In “Medieval Roots to Global Networks: Catholic Sisters and the Archive,” Katie Bugyis, associate professor in the Program of Liberal Studies and director of postdoctoral studies, and CJ Jones, director of the Medieval Institute and professor in the Department of German, Slavic, and Eurasian Studies, draws on archival collections to examine how Catholic women religious communities understood, interpreted, and transmitted their histories as makers of historical knowledge who shaped their own institutional identities through scholarship, pedagogy, and archival practices.
Associate professor of philosophy Therese Cory and theology professor Paulinus Odozor have formed an international working group for their collaborative titled “Vatican II: Renewal within Tradition.” This collaborative works with 150 members engaged in the ongoing interpretation of the second Vatican Council and its significance for the global Church and in regional contexts.
Kathleen Sprows Cummings, director for the Global Catholic Research Initiative, values the Strategic Initiatives’ partnership with the Franco Institute.
“The Global Catholic Research Initiative is proud to partner with the Franco Family Institute in supporting two of this year’s Research Innovation Collaboratives,” Cummings said. “By funding ‘From Medieval Roots to Global Networks: Catholic Sisters and the Archive’ and the International Working Group, ‘Vatican II: Renewal within Tradition,’ GCRI is investing in projects that exemplify the global scope, historical depth, and interdisciplinary strength of Notre Dame scholarship.”
In sum, Cummings stressed the importance of the Research Innovation Collaboratives’ role in scholarship at Notre Dame.
“Together, these collaborations advance the University’s mission to become the preeminent hub for research on global Catholicism,” she said.
Humanities Collaboratives:
William Donahue, professor in the Department of German, Slavic, and Eurasian Studies, will work with Jens Martin of the University of Amsterdam on a project titled “Contested History in Public Spaces: Toward a Global Memory Culture.” Their collaborative re-thinks terminology around public memory to accommodate the challenges around a “memory culture” that functions in dynamic and sometimes unpredictable patterns.
For their collaborative titled “Symphonic Wings Part II: Sustaining Our Common Home through Faith, Science, and Art,” Cynthia Katsarelis, assistant professor of the practice in Sacred Music and Ritornello Chamber Orchestra Director, and Paul Kollman, associate professor of theology, will turn their symphony project Symphonic Wings into a lasting and public-facing platform for thinking about insects through lenses of faith, culture, history, ethics, and care for the living world.
Sustainability Collaboratives (co-sponsored by the ND Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative):
History professor Julia Thomas will partner with Benjamin Goossen, an assistant professor of international history at Boston University, on “Asia and the Anthropocene: Bringing Human Histories and Earth History Together.” Their collaborative approaches the human activity of the Anthropocene from Asian perspectives to address what may be most useful about the Anthropocene as a distinctive framework for Asian histories and what drawbacks to such a framework may exist.
Originally published by at franco.nd.edu on May 05, 2026.
