Contact the NYU Center for the Humanities

Cristina Vatulescu, Center Director

cv26@nyu.edu

Cristina Vatulescu is Director of the Center for the Humanities and Professor and Acting Chair in the Department of Comparative Literature. Her most recent book is Reading the Archival Revolution: Declassified Soviet-Era Stories and Their Challenges (Stanford UP, 2024). She has edited or co-edited volumes and special issues including The Svetlana Boym Reader (Bloomsbury, 2018), an online Diacritics dossier on Teaching and Learning in an Archive Gone Digital (2020), and the Comparative Literature Studies special issue Archival Turns, Twists, and New Directions (2025). Her articles have appeared in Comparative Literature, Diacritics, Kritika, Poetics Today, Law and Literature, Literature/Film Quarterly, and The Brooklyn Rail. Her first book, Police Aesthetics: Literature, Film and The Secret Police (Stanford UP, 2010), won the Heldt Prize and the Outstanding Academic Title Award, sponsored by Choice. A new book project, Arts of Attention: A Literary Seedbank, extends her longstanding preoccupation with the ethics, politics, and potential of reading.

Miki Kaneda, Associate Director

mk739@nyu.edu

Miki Kaneda has worked as an educator, author, and administrator at a range of arts and education non-profit organizations including the Red Hook Art Project, the Museum of Modern Art, and Boston University. Her current book project titled “Transpacific Experimentalisms: Intermedia in 1960s Japan” is forthcoming from the University of Michigan Press.

Caila Bowen, Communications & Programs

cb4617@nyu.edu

As Communications and Program Manager, Caila strengthens the Center’s foundations by overseeing daily activities, digital media, and student growth for the NYU Center for the Humanities. She oversees the lifecycle of the Center’s undergraduate enrichment program, cultivating a culture of mentorship and support for a year-long cohort of scholars. Caila works to expand program visibility through multi-channel communications and serves as the central resource for managing the Center’s public outreach and daily activity to ensure the community has agile access to our resources.

Denelia Valetin, Administrative Aide

dv6@nyu.edu

Denelia Valentin is the Administrative Aide at the NYU Center for the Humanities where she handles the Center’s vendor relationships, space management, and more.