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Faculty Fellow

Ania Aizman

Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures University of Chicago

Biography

Photo by Erielle Bakkum.

Ania Aizman is Assistant Professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago. Her interests include social movements, radical politics and philosophy, migration and diasporism, and the art and literature that influences and transforms our understanding of these topics. She volunteers with programs assisting asylum seekers in Hyde Park.

Featured Project

A healthcare professional in a white coat administers aid to a line of patients.

Boundaries of Benevolence: Exploring the Limits of Compassion

2026 – 2027

Projects

Imagining a Sanctuary City: Chicago’s New Arrivals in Anthropological, Historical, and Legal Contexts

A painting depicts a person sleeping under a purple blanket.

Imagining a Sanctuary City: Chicago’s New Arrivals in Anthropological, Historical, and Legal Contexts

This project will employ ethnographic research, legal case study, and oral history to record and analyze the experiences of asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants in Chicago as well as the volunteers, city workers, and activists supporting them.

This project emerges from our participation in volunteer efforts to assist some of the nearly 42,000 asylum seekers who have arrived in Chicago since August 2022. Through ethnographic research, legal case study, and oral history, we seek to record and analyze the experiences of both arriving and ...