For the 2026–27 academic year, the IAS and the Center for Justice in the Arts (CJAX), along with partners across the University and broader community, are exploring diaspora together. But we are not treating diaspora as a theme we need to define. We want to question it.

Meet Arianna Genis, the University of Minnesota’s second Visionary Community Fellow supported by the Institute for Advanced Study and Liberal Arts Engagement Hub. Genis is challenging one-dimensional narratives of Latino identity and building something far more powerful: a research-backed, community-rooted movement that connects culture, storytelling, and political action across the Midwest.

IAS Programming Manager Carolina Maranon-Cobos reflects on the 2025-26 (In)Justice Series on Data and Power: how the events weren't just a series of conversations about technology or systems, but made space for contradiction, complexity, and joy.