Faculty
Wesleyan University

Sonali Chakravarti is professor of government at Wesleyan University. Her public writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Atlantic, Dissent, and The Boston Review. She is part of the Wesleyan team that received a Mellon Foundation grant, “Carceral Connecticut” (2022-2025), to study slavery, abolition, and punishment in the Connecticut River Valley.

Faculty
College of Mount Saint Vincent

Leonard Nalencz is an associate professor of English at the University of Mount Saint Vincent. His recent project is a translation of Quechua stories and poems into Spanish and English (forthcoming with Trident Press in 2024). He has led practices of attention at the New School, the Universidad Torcuato di Tella in Buenos Aires, the Universita' di Milano, Parsons School of Design, and the School for Visual Arts.

Faculty
Princeton University

D. Graham Burnett is a New-York-based teacher, writer, and maker who has worked with the Friends of Attention since 2018. He trained in the History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge University, teaches at Princeton, and was a 2023 visiting artist at the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki.

Faculty
Princeton University

Jeff Dolven teaches poetry and poetics at Princeton University. His books include Senses of Style (Chicago UP 2018) and *A New English Grammar (dispersed holdings 2022); his essays and articles treat subjects from early modern prosody to player pianos. He is the founding director of Princeton’s Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in the Humanities and an editor at large at Cabinet magazine.

Fall ‘24 Faculty
Princeton University

Anaís Martinez Jimenez is a scholar from the border city of Tijuana, Mexico. Currently, she is a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature at Princeton University where she works in the domains of poetics, critical theory, psychoanalysis, and North American studies. She is also a psychoanalyst in training at the National Psychological Association of Psychoanalysis and sees patients at the Theodor Reik Clinical Center in New York City.

Fall ‘24 Faculty

Amber Pedersen is a criminal justice advocate examining disposability culture’s impact on systemic change. She served as the Strategy and Innovation Specialist at the Colorado Department of Corrections and as a Govern for America Fellow, holding a BA in Public Policy from New York University. She has led statewide initiatives to reduce the harm inherent in the carceral state through policy advising, storytelling, and power brokering with local, national, and community partners.

Faculty
Filmmaker and Sundance Fellow

Alyssa Loh is a filmmaker and writer based in New York. Her film work has screened internationally and been supported by Sundance, TIFF, Fantasia, SXSW, and more. She holds an MFA/MBA (film) from NYU Tisch/Stern. She writes for outlets such as Artforum, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and The American Reader. She co-created the film series Twelve Theses on Attention for the 2021 Glasgow International Biennial; the book version (text + film stills) was published by Princeton University Press in 2022.

Faculty
College of Mount Saint Vincent

Kristin Lawler is Professor of Sociology at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in New York City. She is author of The American Surfer: Radical Culture and Capitalism, and a co-editor of two forthcoming edited collections: Roll and Flow: the Cultural Politics of Surf and Skate, and Live Theory: the Stanley Aronowitz Reader. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for the Radical Imagination and of the Surf and Skate Collaborative at San Diego State.

Fall '24 Faculty

Eve Jacobs is an NYC-based dancer and choreographer from Chicago.  She completed her early training at Dance Center Evanston, and went on to study ballet at North Carolina School of the Arts before attending Juilliard, where she earned her BFA in 2014. At Juilliard, Eve performed in works by Pina Bausch, Ohad Naharin, Lar Lubovitch, and Jose Limon, and went on to join the acclaimed company Jessica Lang Dance. 

Fall '24 Faculty

Adam Pearce (he/him) is a coach, facilitator, and writer based in Brooklyn, NY. He has a Master’s of Public Administration from NYU and is passionate about the intersection of individual agency and systemic change. He lives in Crown Heights with his partner and their two incredible children.

Facilitator

Troy "BACHTROY" Mitchell is an activist, producer, and DJ currently based in Brooklyn, New York. He is invested in facilitation and art to create space for change and conversation. Professionally, Troy identifies as a multi-potentialist, embodying the idea that we, as humans, have the potential to do many things and should never box ourselves in as a master of only one.

Faculty
New Haven Public Schools

Jac Mullen is a writer and teacher based in New Haven, Connecticut. From 2012-2016, he was the executive editor of The American Reader, a bimonthly journal of arts and letters, which he also co-founded.

Facilitator

Raiane Cantisano runs an Ontologically based, trauma-informed personal and professional development coaching company. She (her/hers) is also an actor/singer, with theatre credits including the Flea Theater, the Women’s Project (MTC) and Planet Connections Festival; she has performed in venues such as Rockwood Music Hall and Bowery Electric with her band, singing authorial Pop songs. Her vision for the world is that all people have access to their inherent worth, lead a meaningful life and commonly experience connected intimacy.

Visual Communications

Shanaz Deen is a freelance photographer based in NYC and a resident artist at the Strother School of Radical Attention. She works as an advocacy fellow, organizer and documentarian at the Interfaith Center of New York.

Facilitator

Quinn Marchman is a theatremaker and educator currently based in Harlem. He is the Uptown Community Educator with the Early Relationship Abuse Prevention Program where he works in middle and high school communities exploring the many dynamics of communication, boundaries and the beautiful struggle of being human. Formerly he has served as co-founder and Director of Education at the Black Actors Guild, teaching artist with Denver Center of Performing Arts and a fellow with National Arts Strategies.

Facilitator

Eve Mitchell is a psychotherapist serving the Hudson Valley and New York City; she specializes in somatic treatment for PTSD. Her passion for attention directly intersects with her passion for the politics of care.

Facilitator

Amalia Mayorga is a cultural worker turned performance artist and a techno-anthropologist. Born and raised in Yonkers New York, she has been singing since the day she was born.

Facilitator

Jahony Germosen is a student at the College of Mount Saint Vincent majoring in English and double minoring in business and law. She is an aspiring writer and hopes to pursue a career in law.

Program Director

Peter Schmidt is a writer and organizer from Clayton, Missouri. His writing has appeared in Foreign Affairs, The Baffler, The Brooklyn Rail, and The New York Times. Since September of 2022 he has served as the Program Director of the Strother School of Radical Attention.