Chicago Forum Research and Course Development Grants

Academic Year 2025 Grant Awards

University of Chicago Faculty & Academic Appointees: 

Mary Anne Case, Was the Free Exercise Holding in UCLA v. Frankel the Right Deed for the Wrong Reason?

Nicholas Feamster, Internet Censorship and Online Speech

Faith Hillis, Grappling with Genocide, Then and Now (in collaboration with CMES, CEERES, CLAS)

Kimberly Hoang, Entangled Economies: Power, Influence, and Financial Networks Between China and the United States

Eugne Yu Ji, Interrogating Generative AI’s Role in Understanding and Shaping Free Expression: A Cognitive Models Course Initiative

Eugene Yu Ji, The Language Ideology of Freedom: Comparative Studies on Free Expression in Late Ancient Chinese Confucian and Buddhist Traditions

Alice Kim, Narratives of Incarceration and Justice Community Engaged Course (in collaboration with Cathy Cohen from the University of Chicago)

Bernard Koch, Forbidden Science? A Computational Assessment of Racial Hereditarianism (in collaboration with Kushan Dasgupta from the University of Louisville, Daniele Silvestro from the University of Fribourg, and Aaron Panofsky from the University of California, Los Angeles)

Julia Mendelsohn, Workshop on AI for Democracy (in collaboration with Chenhao Tan from the University of Chicago)

Benjamin Morgan, Doing My Own Research: The Role of Academic Inquiry in Developing Points of View

Kenneth Moss, Working Group on the Israeli and Palestinian Crisis and its Futures

Elisabeth Moyer, Archiving the January 6th Capitol Attack

Shigehiro Oishi, Is Freedom of Expression Hindered by the Pursuit of Happiness? (in collaboration with Erin C. Westgate from the University of Florida)

Robert Pape, The Political Impact of Protests on Universities (in collaboration with Keven Ruby and Kyle Larson)

Abigail Reardon, Inquiry, Conversation, Argument: Transforming Undergraduate Writing Curricula at the University of Chicago

Michael Rossi, Bad Language: Rogue Linguistics and Experimental Policing in the Twentieth Century

Haun Saussy, Languages and Literatures vs. Speech Control

Jennifer Scappettone, Geopoetics of Copper from 1858 through the Present: Pennies from Nether and the Dawn of Internationalist Protest

Ahmed El Shamsy, Freedom of Expression Before Freedom of Expression: How and Why Unpopular Opinions Survived in the Premodern Muslim World

Sergei Shokarev, Improving and Supplementing the Course “Roots of War: Historical and Cultural Causes of Russian Aggression in Ukraine

Sunit Singh, The Ghost of Joseph Anton: Salman Rushdie and the Futures Lost

Jennifer Spruill, An Ethnographic Reframing of Hate Speech and Law in the U.S. and Germany

Susan Stokes, Universities in an Era of Democratic Erosion (in collaboration with Aziz Huq)

Robert Vargas, Gangs in Uniform: Constructing a Public Database for Examining the Impact of Deputy Gangs in Los Angeles County (in collaboration with Cerise Castle)

Tanya Zakrison, Breaking Medical Barriers: Academic Freedom in Cuban-American Scientific Exchange (in collaboration with Christopher Gomez, Ramya Kumar, Diane Haddad, Anjli Parrin, and Baddr Shaksheer)

University of Chicago Graduate Students:

Kevin Angell, Employee v. Employer? A Study of Workplace Political Speech (in collaboration with Isaac Mehlhaff from Texas A&M University)

Reynell Badillo Sarmiento, Shadow Electoral Campaigning: How Criminal Groups Curtail Freedom of Expression To Alter Elections

Andrew Beddow, American and German Speech and Expression: Comparative Perspectives on Free Inquiry

Lautaro Cella, Tolerance for Denialist Rhetoric in Argentina and Chile

Abhimanyu Chandra, Hindu Nationalism and Freedom to Teach at a University: Can Religious Rituals Only Be Taught By Someone of That Religion?

Matthew Conklin, “A Gift, Not a Trade”: Think Tanks, the Ukraine War, and the Elite Politics of National Security (in collaboration with Adam Saxton from the University of Chicago)

Rachel Chery, Cold War Frequencies: Radio, Music, and Cultural Diplomacy in the Caribbean

Gabriel Foy-Sutherland, “The Submerged Campaign: Citizens United, SpeechNow, and the Transformation of American Campaign Strategy”

Dilge Iris Girgin, Freedom Interrupted: International Students in the U.S. Under Transnational Repression

Lauren Hagani, Parental Rights in Education: Litigating the Future of Public Schooling

Zikai Li, Using Large Language Models to Tailor Communication Styles and Counter Climate Misinformation

Luc Moulaison, The Transnational Origins of the Left's Uneasy Relationship with Free Speech (in collaboration with Eli Frankel & Phi Bachsleitner from the University of Chicago)

Natalia Niedmann Alvarez, Unsettling the "Gender Wars" Through a Comparative Perspective of Feminist Activism

Ruanzhenghao Shi, Crackle and Crackdown: Movement Diffusion, Decentralized Action, and State Suppression in the 2018 Chinese #Metoo Movement

Ralph Valery Valiere, Harris School Annual Debate Competition (in collaboration with Harris Student Government)

Jiebiao Wang, Global Exiled Journalism: Advancing Free Inquiry and Expression Across Borders

Olivia Young, A Question of Loyalties: Western Sephardim Confront Community Building, Political Economy, and Diplomacy, 1600-1800

Cemal Yilmaz, Political Rhetoric and Democratic Backsliding: A Novel Framework for Understanding Threats to Democracy and Free Speech

Matthew Zipf, The Origins of a Journalist: Renata Adler’s Archives in Frankfurt and Milan