The Tisch Initiative fo Creative Research, in collaboration with the Center for Research and Study, is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2026 Tisch Faculty Publishing Grant. This funding opportunity supports full-time faculty members in publishing artistic and scholarly works across a range of forms and disciplines, providing financial assistance for production-related expenses such as indexing, copyright permissions, and translation costs. This year's grantees represent a range of departments and research interests, reflecting Tisch's ongoing commitment to advancing creative knowledge production.
Meet the 2026 Grantees
Alfonso Morgan - Terrero
Undergraduate Film & Television
Homesickness: a BIPOC Cinema Zine Volume 03
Homesickness is an annual BIPOC cinema publication that functions as both a research platform and pedagogical text within NYU Tisch. While Volume 2 examined contemporary movements and emerging cinematic futures, Volume 3 shifts toward a historiographic inquiry inspired by James Widdicombe’s essay “Don’t Mistake the Map for the Terrain.” This volume investigates canon formation itself: who defines it, who is excluded, and how it may be responsibly expanded within BIPOC cinema traditions.
The central research question is: How do we identify and preserve canon within BIPOC cinema without replicating the exclusions of dominant Western film history? Rather than positioning these cinemas as peripheral, Volume 3 foregrounds their internal lineages and aesthetic revolutions as foundational to global film discourse.
Ashley Guajardo
NYU Game Center
Playing Like a Fangirl
Playing Like A Fangirl is a co-written manuscript which develops the concept of the “fangirl gaze” to show how communities of fangirls can be regarded as oppositional, subversive, and transformative in terms of societal expectations of gender, play, and sex, and how these gazes are read within larger social and political contexts. Accessibly and engagingly written, the book expands upon current understandings of video games’ impact on society and culture by exploring the expressions of desire and sexuality outside of those of white cis-het males in mainstream game culture, shedding light on understudied topics and underrepresented (minority) gaming experiences.
Daniel C Soule
Department of Drama
Scenographies #2
Scenographies is the annual publication of LIRIS (Laboratoire International de Recherche sur les Images et la Scenographie), a global scenographic research group based in Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris. The group’s activities are jointly supported by partner institutions representing nine global regions, and Scenographies collects written analyses and interviews from each. As Scientific Committee Head for North America, Prof Daniel Soule of Tisch Drama curates and introduces the North American contributions.
Scenographies #2, scheduled for publication in Oct 2026, contains the work of LIRIS 2024-25, as presented at LIRIS Global Colloquium 2025 (hosted by Prof Soule and Tisch IPA). The North American contribution to this year’s volume includes Prof Soule’s own study, “Physical Model Building in North American Scenic Design,” as well as his introductory essay, “The Presence of the Present in North American Scenography.”
Editha Mesina
Photography & Imaging
Sewn Binding for: Chronicle
Chronicle compiles photographic work that captures nearly twenty years of family life, spanning from 2006 to 2024. This work began during a family trip to Quezon City, Philippines, Mesina's birthplace, and continues through views from her home in New York. These vernacular views are combined with references to protests supporting Philippine human rights and nods to the medium of photography.
Constructed in panorama format, the photographs are individual frames stitched together, assemblages of space and time. Mesina repurposes the panorama format's known representations of grand views to express the reflections of a mother, activist, and photographer. As an immigrant artist, she locates concepts of belonging, identity, and memory in these sustained quotidian moments.
Scott Miller
Graduate Acting
Text Transfusion
Text Transfusion addresses a problem every presenter, lecturer, and performer knows but rarely discusses: no matter how thoroughly one rehearses verbatim memorized text, it still feels different coming out than when speaking off-the-cuff. Bridging that gap is essential to achieving an embodied, inspired delivery, for the speaker and the audience alike. And yet, despite a crowded marketplace of performance and speaker technique, no method has existed to accomplish this. Until now. Drawing on emergent neuroscience and cognitive research, Miller guides speakers through a process of relating to text in an embodied, organic way that mirrors human processing rather than rote memorization. The technique works for performers, presenters, and anyone who incorporates verbatim text into their practice, grounding them in authenticity and presence while creating a virtuous cycle in which research, content, and memorization reinforce one another. Text Transfusion helps turn competent into compelling.