Kita, Shearer win NEH fellowships

Caroline Kita, associate professor of German and of comparative literature, and Samuel Shearer, assistant professor of African and African American studies, both in Arts & Sciences, have won research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

‘Infrastructural Optimism’

In cynical times, optimism gets a bad rap. But in her new book “Infrastructural Optimism,” Linda C. Samuels argues that optimism is not simply a reflexive emotional state, but a critical driver of public investment, societal progress and — perhaps — democracy itself.