Kristina Shull is a lecturer in the Department of History at
UC Irvine and an activist who shared with us how her education shaped the work
she does to bring attention to the problems facing immigration and immigration
detention centers in the United States.
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| Photo credit: Axel Dupex for the Open Society Foundations |
Can you talk about your experience at NYU and how it helped
shape what you do now?
I am so grateful for my time at NYU. The interdisciplinary Master’s Draper Program
in Humanities and Social Thought was foundational in several ways. It allowed me the flexibility to pursue and
hone my intellectual interests, and it introduced me to theories and methods
for understanding issues like immigration detention within the larger frameworks
of global histories and human rights. The
program’s rigor prepared me well for doctoral work, and its opportunities for community
engagement helped me envision a career in academic activism. I think it’s most important contribution in
shaping my career path was providing a model for a “hybrid” approach to making
academia actionable in the world, where history can be marshaled as a catalyst
for change.
