People

Directors

Kimberly Marshall, Faculty Director, OU Arts & Humanities Forum

Marshall is Associate Professor of Anthropology and has taught at OU since 2011. Her research focuses on the anthropology of religion and expressive culture with a specialization in Native North America. Marshall’s 2016 book Upward, Not Sunwise: Resonant Rupture in Navajo Neo-Pentecostalism focuses on the spread of Pentecostalism among Navajos (Diné) and was published by the University of Nebraska Press. Her current project focus on the contemporary erasure of Native people from the Great Basin, with a focus on the arts and cultural infrastructure in Idaho. Her work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Wenner-Gren Foundation.

Marshall has served on the Advisory Board of the Forum since 2018 and was a Forum Fellow during the 2017-2018 academic year. She holds PhDs in Anthropology and Ethnomusicology from Indiana University as well as an MA in Folklore from the University of Oregon, and is currently serving as a member of the Council for the Society for Ethnomusicology.

Says Marshall: “I have found the OU Arts and Humanities Forum to be one of the most intellectually stimulating, collaborative, and supportive spaces for humanistic scholars on our campus. The work we do as humanities scholars fosters badly needed critical thinking and promotes inclusive belonging not just for our students, but for our state and our society as a whole. As Faculty Director, I am honored to help amplify the impact of our outstanding humanities scholars here at OU.”

Julie-Françoise Tolliver, Assistant Director for Grants and Fellowships

Tolliver is Associate Professor of English; she joined OU in 2022. Her research focuses on comparative literature and film, with a specialization in francophone cultures. Tolliver’s book The Quebec Connection: A Poetics of Solidarity in Global Francophone Literatures (University of Virginia Press, 2020, New World Series) examines the eccentric position of the province of Quebec in French-speaking literary movements during the long independence era (1950s-1970s), arguing that francophone authors accommodated Quebec’s difference and found ways to include it in literary solidarities. The Quebec Connection was supported by an NEH Fellowship, was awarded the American Comparative Literature Association’s Helen Tartar First Book Subvention, and is forthcoming as an NEH Fellowships Open Book. Her current project analyzes representations of wildfire in North American literature and film and maintains that the humanities form an essential piece in understanding the meaning of our current climate crisis. Tolliver holds an MA and PhD in comparative literature and literary theory from the University of Pennsylvania.

Tolliver’s role at the Forum is to support Arts and Humanities faculty as they integrate grant writing in their research and creative activities. Says Tolliver: “Applying for external funding is a good way to articulate for ourselves and others the impact our work can have on the world. The OU Arts and Humanities Forum is a really important place to promote grant-funded research so that the work of our scholars can reach the broadest possible audiences. I look forward to being part of a solidary community of grant writing researchers and artists.”