JEN D’MELLO
Jendmello@alum.calarts.edu
Education
2022 MFA, WRITING | CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF THE ARTS, VALENCIA, CA. Specialization: Speculative Nonfiction, Thesis Advisor and Mentor: Tisa Bryant
2015 B.A., ENGLISH | UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE, CA. Minor: Queer Studies, Advisor and Mentor: Fred Moten
Areas of Study
Speculative Nonfiction, Music-Fiction, Cross-cultural/cross-genre/hybrid Writing, Mythologies, Somatic Poetics, Queer Studies, Black Feminist Studies, Critical Improvisation Studies, Experimental Sound Practices, Structuralism & Semiotics, Materiality (that seeks to cross the threshold of this world into the next), Ontology (multiplicity), and studies that seek to work through the epistemology of practice as research such as writing and the Undercommons.
Teaching Interests
Cross-Cultural/Cross-Genre/Hybrid Writing, Archives/Research/Source, Texts, and Style & Mechanics of Narrative
Invited Talks
2021 Invited Guest, Experiments in Dissonance with Tisa Bryant at California Institute of the Arts, School of Critical Studies Symposium, Topics of Conversation: Interdisciplinarity as Intimacy, Music-fiction, Genealogies and Ecologies of Knowledge, Music-fiction, Thresholds, Language as Material for Sound, Biological Phenomena, The Multiverse, Infrasimulteneity, Materiality, the Ontological Turn in Anthropology, and Queer Sociality
2020 Invited Guest, Music-fiction: A Conversation with Eyvind Kang and Tisa Bryant at California Institute of the Arts, School of Critical Studies Symposium, Topics of Conversation: Sound as Language, Infrasimulteneity, Thresholds, Materiality, Ontology, Study as Spiritual Practice, Queer Sociality
2020 Occult Poetry Radio: Jen D’Mello in Conversation with CA Conrad, Invited Guest, Topics of Conversation: Occult Poetics, (Soma)tic Poetics, Ritual, Specters, Hauntology, Genealogy, Materiality, Ontology (Multiplicity), Queer Sociality (Postponed due to COVID-19)
Invited Readings
2022 Invited Guest, Showcase: CalArts Creative Writing MFA Reading at the REDCAT/Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater
2022 Invited Guest, Next Words: CalArts Creative Writing MFA Reading at the Poetic Research Bureau
Invited Performances
2020 Co-Producer, Opulence, Be My Eyes: An Experiment in Occult Poetics, Shirley Kim-Ryu, California Institute of the Arts, School of Critical Studies Symposium, Premiered May 9, 2020
Exhibitions
2017 Content Writer, Dykes to Watch Out for: 90’s Queer LA Activism, Lynn Harris-Ballen and Judy Ornelas-Sisneros, ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives: “Pus N Boots: A 90’s, Silverlake-based, Queer, Trans, and Lesbian, Direct-Action Collective,” University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA.
Residencies
2022 Participant and Performer, Writing the Luso Experience, Disquiet International Literary Program, Lisbon, PT., Engaged in intensive core workshops in Nonfiction, Poetry, and Writing the Luso Experience with writers from North America and Portugal, attended workshops on performance and storytelling, discussions with editors from Dzanc Books, Guernica, Ninth Letter, McSweeney’s, New York Review of Books, St. Petersburg Review, and other North American and international publishers and periodicals, and attended lectures on Portuguese literature and culture. Presented: Disintegration: A Written and Sonic Experiment, August 2, 2021.
2022 Participant & Performer, Collaborative Experimentation in Sound II, An Institute of Speculative and Critical Inquiry and Serralves Museum Summer School in Porto, Porto, PT., Engaged in collaborative research and critical and creative production by initiating collaborative writing workshops with a view toward language as sonic material and practice. Performed: 7-person, improvisational, sound engineering and poetry performance, July 16, 2022.
2021 Participant & Performer, Collaborative Experimentation in Sound, An Institute of Speculative and Critical Inquiry and Fabrica Braço de Prata Summer School in Lisbon, Lisbon, PT., Engaged in multidisciplinary explorations of sound, body, and space, combining traditional and theoretical knowledge with hands-on experimentation in using sound as an art form, and participated in on-going discussions about sonic arts, sound studies, electronic and computer music, performance, dance, installation, art history, critical theory, and poetry and experimental writing practices. Performed: 5-person, improvisational, sound engineering and poetry performance, July 16, 2021.
2020 Participant & Presenter, Cosmic Alternatives: Plural Thought In and Out of Modernity, A Terra Compartilhada Summer School in Lisbon, Institute of Speculative and Critical Inquiry, Lisbon, PT., Participated in and facilitated on-going discussions about structuralism, pluralistic philosophy (the ontological turn in anthropology) non-western variations of thought, ecology and planetarity. Presented: Dry Signals for Marine Mammals: A Short Film and Electronic Composition, August 8, 2020.
Funded Projects
2022 International Residency, University of California, Berkeley, Institute of Speculative and Critical Inquiry Project Grant
2022 Disquiet Residency, Disquiet International Literary Program, Lisbon, Portugal, Scholarship
2021 International Residency, University of California, Berkeley, Institute of Speculative and Critical Inquiry Project Grant
2020 International Residency, California Institute of the Arts, School of Critical Studies Research Grant
2020 International Residency, University of California, Berkeley, Institute of Speculative and Critical Inquiry Project Grant
2020 Landscape Stereo Field Residency at Coaxial Arts, California Institute of the Arts, School of Critical Studies Project Grant
Research Positions
2021 Research Fellow, CalArts Historical Timelines Project, California Institute of the Arts California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA
Performed original research into the history of the development of California Institute of the Arts with an emphasis on the School of Critical Studies
Utilized the CalArts archive, library databases, and internet databases to construct a detailed timeline of the School’s development from its conception in 1961 to the present
Researched the history of working/teaching artists in the School of Critical Studies at CalArts
Contributed to a bibliography of publications on radical arts pedagogy at CalArts
Researched the arts and arts institutions providing important context for contemporary practice
Provided weekly email updates on research; discussed development of project by Zoom periodically
Initiated contact with faculty and administrators with knowledge of the School’s history and development
Teaching Positions
2021 - Humanities Advisor, Self-employed, Los Angeles, CA. 2022
Prepare integrated arts and humanities curricula and facilitate classes for adolescent students, furnishing multiple points of entry through careful analysis of works constituting speculative nonfiction, creative nonfiction, music, film, and sound technology
Practice an instructional approach that enables the development of both students’ and instructors’ creative and intellectual practices
Encourage students to begin to discover through service that the study of art must not be limited to individual expression; it is a practice of generosity and a profoundly significant mode of communication
Initiate, various modes of self-reflection, encouraging autonomous study and powerful literacy across subjects
Fall 2021- Graduate Student Instructor, California Institute of the Arts, School of Critical Studies, Spring 2022 Valencia, CA., Posthuman Fiction & Introduction to Critical Studies
Facilitated dynamic and rigorous classes for undergraduate art students by encouraging close readings of literature and film, invited students to appreciate writing as an exploratory practice, and assisted in the development of individual students’ research methods
Fall 2019- Graduate Student Instructor, California Institute of the Arts, School of Critical Studies, Valencia, Spring 2020 CA. Archaeology & Introduction to Critical Studies Introduction to Critical Studies
Facilitated rigorous and inventive classes for undergraduate art students by encouraging students’ awareness of their individual writing processes, and performed in-depth analysis of assigned readings while furnishing multiple points of entry
2018 Humanities Advisor, Renaissance Arts Academy, May-July 2018/end of academic year, Los Angeles
Facilitated humanities classes in an ensemble setting for multi-age groups and encouraged intellectual creativity and discernment through in-depth analysis of classical texts and challenging independent analysis
Participated in a schoolwide, instructional approach that integrated arts, sciences, mathematics and humanities in a diversely accessible manner, furnishing multiple points of entry that engaged both students and faculty in a process of on-going inquiry
Invited students to discover through service that art is more than a means of individual expression – it is a call to generosity of spirit, a powerful means of communication, and a commitment to community involvement
Collaborated with faculty and administration in assessing and fine-tuning the unique curricular approaches through shared consideration of how real-world application of work habits and skills developed at RenArts benefits students in post-secondary, post graduate contexts
2017- Literacy Teacher & Somatic Poetry Workshop Facilitator, Citizens of the World, Mar Vista, CA. 2018
Developed and facilitated (soma)tic poetry writing workshops, enabling various points of entry into the writing process
Participated in a school-wide, instructional approach that encouraged the development of mindfulness practices in an accessible manner amongst both students and staff
Invited students to learn through the development of alternative communication practices that the establishment of equitable and sustainable communities follows a commitment to both individual and collective growth
Researched and documented individual students’ academic and socio-emotional development over the course of an academic year