Paula Gaither’s research looks at how ancient Roman depictions of Blackness have been shaped—and misshaped—by modern scholarship and museum practices. She is equal parts party, equal parts scholar, equal parts absolute bright light of a human being!
theemergenceroom.com/2026/01/29/p...

We spoke with Anita Contini on how art ideas evolve once they encounter scale, funding, community engagement, and time, how some of her influential contributions began almost by accident & how leadership often moves from individual problem to collective solution. theemergenceroom.com/2026/01/15/a...

We talk with Timothy Darden aka BlacKostume about what it means to be an undergraduate artist finding your voice, how music and filmmaking inform one another, and how studying film in Rome has opened new ways of thinking about identity, translation & authorship. theemergenceroom.com/2026/01/02/t...

This week in The Emergence Room, we sit down with someone whose presence feels like stepping into a poem — David Keplinger, poet, translator, teacher, and Rome Prize Fellow. theemergenceroom.com/2025/12/11/d...

This week we sit down with @margo-weitzman.bsky.social , Rome Prize Fellow and PhD candidate at Rutgers University, whose research traces a sixteenth-century merchant moving between India and Italy—translating worlds through trade, language, and desire. theemergenceroom.com/2025/12/06/m...

We sat down with the extraordinary duo Bonnie Fisher and Boris Dramov – partners in life, in practice, and in purpose – have shaped communities and cultural memory through their work, including the iconic Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C.

theemergenceroom.com/2025/11/27/b...

In our latest episode we sit down with Pythagoras The Sage — artist, philosopher, musician, and fellow traveler at the American Academy in Rome — to explore how flow, music, and philosophy merge in a practice rooted in transformation and queerness.

theemergenceroom.com/2025/11/20/p...

Rick Luttmann – Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Sonoma State University – joins The Emergence Room. A mathematician and lifelong wanderer, Rick brings a generosity of spirit and a catalog of stories that simply do not fit into one episode. bohemianalps.net/theemergence...

We sat down with Chuna McIntyre, Founder and Director of the Nunamta Yup’ik Eskimo Singers and Dancers and current American Academy in Rome Fellow, to talk about his work with the Yup’ik Masks in the “Anima Mundi” of the Vatican Museums.
theemergenceroom.com/2025/11/02/c...