Dr. Azsaneé’s 2025 in Review

The long distance has finally come to an end! We literally UHauled (lol) from Baton Rouge to Philly in the middle of August and still liked each other by the end of it. On the first day, a 14 hour drive turned into 19 hours thanks to Atlanta traffic. We got to our hotel in Durham, NC at around 2AM, slept, and had breakfast. Then the second leg of the trip was about 9 hours with stops. Tbh, someone needs to talk to UHaul about their choice in seats and the amount of leg room in their trucks. They’re literally making trucks for long-distance travel and apparently don’t consider a cushion a necessity.

Tif is enjoying Philly so far, even though most of her time is spent at home writing her dissertation. And I think (hope) we’re both enjoying living together (you’ll have to confirm with her). We have a three-bedroom apartment 3 blocks from my old apartment, and it’s been really nice to have so much space. Our place is mostly decorated, but there are still a few things we want to complete it. And it only took us 2 weeks of being cold to realize we hadn’t turned the radiators on. Despite a combined 6 (almost 7) degrees, we’re apparently only two halves of a single brain cell.

I recently realized how few people I told that I got a job, mostly because I was just really relieved to have landed one. Finishing your PhD is no joke on its own, but no one warns you how grueling it is to be on the job market at the same time. Academic jobs are particularly horrible to apply for. Most of them want your CV, a cover letter, writing sample(s), research statement, teaching statement, 3 letters of recommendation, sometimes a DEI statement, the blood of a virgin… only for half of them to ghost you. I also applied to non-academic jobs, where positions were just evaporating under the incoming Trump admin. So, it was a particularly hellish time. By the time I got an offer for my current position, I was about 30 rejections deep and questioning my entire existence.

But in June, I landed the Gilbert Seldes Multimodal Postdoctoral Fellowship (post: after, doctoral: finishing your doctorate), which is a two year fellowship in the Center for Experimental Ethnography. I’ve moved from the Communication department over to Anthropology, now with a desk in the Penn Museum where the colonialism is palpable. BUT, other than my office location, I’m really enjoying the job. My primary responsibility is maintaining my own research agenda (publishing articles and allegedly starting to write my first book), and I’m also responsible for planning a hybrid academic conference/art and media festival called the Screening Scholarship Media Festival. All is well on both fronts, and I’m working with a number of dear friends and collaborators in the process. What comes after this? Idk, we’ll probably both have to read the 2027 Christmas card to find out.

Every year, art stuff becomes an increasingly central part of the story. This year, I curated my first exhibition, What World?, at The Arts League (pictured here). Most of my friends/family got to see it at my graduation party, which was really cool. As previously mentioned, I also have an art exhibit related to my dissertation currently up in the Annenberg library at Penn. And I probably a few pieces scattered in places I’m forgetting in this moment. I’ve also been taking ceramics classes and am (very) slowly getting good at it. Time has been limited so I haven’t been practicing as much as I probably should. Hopefully I’ll get back to throwing this winter, and make more space for collaging during a workshop I’ll be teaching in February at the Arts League.

Other than that, I’m currently the Exhibition Designer for an exhibit that’s being commissioned by Art Philly as a part of their What Now: 2026 festival. The exhibit is a companion to a performance titled "In Case of Fire, Speak," choreographed by Philadanco Artistic Director Tommie-Waheed Evans, and featuring dancers from both Philadanco and the Martha Graham Dance Company. The exhibit is intended to explore the themes of Martha Graham's American Document, which she choreographed in 1938 in response to rising fascism in Europe, in the context of both her life/work and the life/work of Philadanco founder Joan Myers-Brown. It will also touch on the politics of these two women founding modern dance companies in the contexts that they did, and the politics of this piece in today's context. The exhibit will open in the Annenberg Center/Penn Live Arts building in March.

Travel

I didn’t do as much traveling this year as I have the past couple of years, but I did go to Montreal, Canada in May to teach a workshop related to my research. From there, I went to Dakar, Senegal for a conference, where my French was also insufficient. And then Tif and I went to a conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico in November. Reader’s Digest: Montreal was just a pretty average city where occasionally things were in French; Dakar had the pace of NYC, West African sensibilities, and French/Wolof as the language, so I needed a ton of help getting around but it was really exciting; and got to learn more about Puerto Rico outside of the tourism of San Juan this time around, in addition to relaxing a bit.