October 2025

Scholar Spotlight: Leonardo Gentil Fernandes

“I study organizations that use violence to achieve political goals. I am primarily interested in how these groups, which are not governments, cooperate with each other and how they sometimes act like governments.” Leonardo Gentil FernandesAssistant ProfessorDepartment of Political Science I use computational and statistical approaches to unearth generalizable patterns of behaviors among armed non-state…
Sinnreich Book Receives Prize

Photo by Erik Campos Professor Helene Sinnreich’s book The Atrocity of Hunger: Starvation in the Warsaw, Łódź, and Kraków Ghettos during World War II was a shortlist finalist for the 2025 Sybil Halpern Milton Memorial Book Prize. The German Studies Association awards the prize every two years to the best book dealing with Nazi Germany…
Dear Maria Edgeworth: Digitizing Historical Letters

A UT Digital Humanities team leads the Maria Edgeworth Letters Project to create a digital database of the author’s history-revealing correspondence. The UT faculty-led Maria Edgeworth Letters Project (MELP) will digitize the historic and extensive correspondence of the most commercially successful novelist from the Regency period, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities…
College-Wide: Judith Anderson Herbert Writing Center

Herbert Writing Center grows opportunities for helping Vols across campus develop professional writing skills. The Judith Anderson Herbert Writing Center expanded its student-focused mission this fall thanks to ongoing engagement from the Herbert family and a new status as a college-level center for comprehensive, cross-disciplinary writing support for Vols at all academic levels. The center…
New Program to Enhance Grad Student Career Readiness

Graduate student training program in sciences and math gets a boost from the National Science Foundation. The National Science Foundation has awarded a grant of $399,209 to Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics (NSM) faculty to develop and implement a holistic disciplinary training program for first-year graduate students that enhances research, teaching, and leadership skills,…
UT Professor Shines Light on Virginia Woolf

UT Professor Urmila Seshagiri’s scholarship provides context for Virginia Woolf’s first fully realized work of fiction in The Life of Violet: Three Early Stories. A century after Virginia Woolf became a leading modernist writer, a professor from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is showing the world a new side of her, through three of the…
UT Opportunities Create T-Shaped Career Skills

Exploring courses, internships, and other activities, Emma Miller is earning dual degrees that are built on her interests and will ensure she stands out in the workforce. Emma C. Miller is preparing to graduate from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in December with deep expertise and broad understanding, a combination that provides a strong foundation…
Recruiters Connect with Future Vols

Recruitment team expansion helps share the Arts and Sciences advantage. Photo by Steven Bridges Sophia Ferguson and Tony Schnadelbach joined the college’s recruitment team earlier this year to expand engagement with new and prospective Vols. Plans are for a third recruiter to join them in spring 2026 as the college increases efforts to connect students…
New Professorships for 2025-2027

New College of Arts and Sciences professorships announced for 2025-2027. Photo by Steven Bridges The College of Arts and Sciences is excited to announce new professorships for 2025–2027. These positions recognize faculty members for their exceptional academic achievements and research contributions, celebrating their roles as leaders in their departments and expertise in their specialized academic…
Radicals in Early Christian Conflict Redefined

A new book by religious studies Professor Tina Shepardson examines religious devotion and polarization within Christianity during late antiquity. Examining conflicts over Christian doctrine in the fifth and sixth centuries might provide a case study for thinking about religion and violence today, a University of Tennessee, Knoxville, scholar suggests. Tina Shepardson, UT Distinguished Professor in…