Third-year Anthropology graduate student Nicolás Díaz Letelier has received a graduate fellowship with the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in the Humanities (IHUM), which grants a joint-appointed degree in Humanistic Studies. IHUM offers interdisciplinary seminars and programming and provides an additional year of fellowship support for interdisciplinary work to selected students pursuing a joint Ph.D.

Nicolás is a doctoral student working at the interface of moral and political anthropology, affect theory, and gender studies, focusing on the affective and ethical dimensions of violence on the one hand, and the moral and political governance of the latter on the other. His dissertation focuses on the past and present lives of former intelligence agents, military officers, and civil collaborators of the repressive apparatus during the Chilean dictatorship (1973-1990) and their international ramifications throughout the continent and beyond. In particular, this project brings forth the ethical and psychic intimacy of the secret police to explore the aging of the dictatorship and its perpetrators, and their heterochronic becomings from the dictatorial times to the unstable textures of the present. This is framed within the historical threads of silence, secrecy, and impunity that persist in the everyday life of the region.

Nicolás's dissertation research is co-advised by Professors João Biehl and Laurence Ralph. 

Council's Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in the Humanities Welcomes 2025-26 Cohort