Getting to know Yale MacMillan Faculty Fellows
In December 2025, the MacMillan Center launched its Faculty Fellows Program, an initiative designed to foster community among Yale’s incoming faculty and to catalyze transdisciplinary dialogue across regions and disciplines. As Yale’s international hub, MacMillan supports faculty through its global councils, programs, and resources, offering fellows opportunities for collaboration, intellectual exchange, and engagement beyond departmental boundaries.
As part of this growing community, three MacMillan Faculty Fellows were recently featured in Yale Today’s Getting to Know… Q&A series. Their conversations highlight not only the range of scholarship represented in the fellowship program, but also the personal paths and questions that animate their work.
Moekko Fujii – Film & Media
Moeko Fujii reflects on how a childhood fascination with classic Hollywood films evolved into a scholarly interest in film noir and the racialized logics embedded in cinematic form. Her current book project, The Asiatic Logic of Film Noir, examines how “the Asiatic” functions not only as a figure within film narratives, but also as a conceptual structure that shapes what, and who, becomes visible on screen. As Fujii notes, what appears marginal in these films is often “the very surface that makes the visible and the human legible.”
Beyond noir, Fujii also explores makeover films and the visual language through which transformation, identity, and social belonging are negotiated. She also spoke about her appreciation for Yale’s film culture and her longstanding loyalty to Japan’s Hanshin Tigers, interests that reflect how personal history continues to inform her scholarly work.
j. Siguru Wahutu – Sociology
Sociologist j. Siguru Wahutu’s Q&A centers on the ethical and intellectual challenges of studying media representations of genocide and mass atrocities. His research foregrounds African journalists and media workers, examining how they narrate violence and memory in ways that complicate dominant global news frameworks. Wahutu describes that teaching these topics often prompts difficult but necessary conversations about whose voices are heard — and whose are routinely overlooked.
Wahutu is currently developing a second book that turns toward technology and data sovereignty, analyzing how global tech companies shape digital futures across the African continent.
Piphal Heng – Anthropology
Archaeologist Piphal Heng invites readers to look beyond Angkor’s iconic temples and toward the people who lived, worked, and built communities around them. Drawing on techniques such as spatial analysis, ceramic chemistry, and LIDAR, Heng’s research helps us see Angkor Wat not just as a monumental site, but as a place where large, active communities once lived and worked.
Heng also challenges long-standing narratives of Angkor’s “collapse,” emphasizing continuity and adaptation instead of abandonment. His work underscores how archaeological methods can reshape our understanding of political change, urban life, and resilience in Southeast Asia.