Tools for the Undercommons Speaker Series: Nov 4

When: Wednesday, November 4, 2026, 12noon-1:15 PT / 1-2:15pm MT / 2-3:15pm CT / 3-4:15pm ET

Where: Online via zoom

Drawing inspiration from Harney and Moten’s theorization of “study” as the “incessant and the irreversible intellectuality” present in myriad forms of collective knowledge production, this speaker series brings together scholars, artists, and other cultural workers to share field-tested tools that maintain alternate centers of gravity within (and outside of) academia, while also constituting an undercommons of its own.  We define tools broadly—including strategies, tactics, theories, case studies, methods, and more—that support ongoing efforts to develop new pathways for research and creative intervention that is meaningful to those most impacted and that demonstrates the value of creative work to diverse audiences and institutions. This IA Collaboratory is organized by professors Jacqueline Jean Barrios and Harris Kornstein (Public & Applied Humanities, University of Arizona), and each virtual event features two guest speakers in a salon-style conversation with attendees.

This month’s featured speakers are Sylvia Fernández Quintanilla (Assistant Professor of Public and Digital Humanities at the University of Texas at San Antonio) and Lili Flores Aguilar (Associate Director of the Markings/Huellas project at UCLA cityLAB).

Supported, in part, by a grant from the University of Arizona Commission on the Status of Women.

Sylvia Fernández Quintanilla (she/her/ella) is a transborder digital scholar and Assistant Professor of Public and Digital Humanities at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Her research, teaching, and community work bring together border studies, feminist practices, theory of the flesh, and digital technologies to develop ethical and inclusive scholarly and public projects. She collaborates with faculty, students, librarians, artists, and communities across borders on digital humanities, archives, data storytelling, and social justice initiatives. She is Principal Investigator of a Mellon-funded project developing a Transborder Digital Humanities Center–Consortium at UTSA and has received collaborative support from NEH, Mellon, Mozilla, and other organizations.

Lili Flores Aguilar, Ph.D., is a transdisciplinary artist, scholar, and cultural worker based in Tovaangar (Los Angeles). A Coca descendant, her research and creative practice engage Indigenous epistemologies, decolonial methodologies, and community-based art-making, centering relational accountability, reciprocity, and collective world-making. Her work explores practices of refusal, cultural memory, and knowledge-making that sustain relationships and ways of being within, against, and beyond institutional structures. She earned her Ph.D. in Culture and Performance from UCLA Arts and currently serves as Associate Director of the Markings/Huellas project at UCLA cityLAB, a collaborative oral history, archival, and public art initiative celebrating Indigenous communities in the Westlake / MacArthur Park neighborhood and their practices of place-making in Los Angeles. She is also Deputy Director of the Gabrielino~Tongva Springs Foundation, supporting the cultural and ecological revitalization of Kuruvungna Springs and teaches Anthropology at Santa Monica College.

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