Faculty Spotlight 2022-23

Brian Daugherity

Faculty Spotlight: Brian Daugherity

Written by Maggie Unverzagt Goddard, Postdoctoral Fellow, History Dept.; Associate Director, Health Humanities Lab; Co-Director, Public Humanities Lab

 

As the Co-Director of the Public Humanities Lab at the HRC, Brian Daugherity draws on his extensive experience using collaboration as a methodology. Combining history and education, his work is not just limited to learning about the past; rather, Daugherity focuses on the past to learn important lessons and to find how it connects with the present....

Faedah Totah

Faculty Spotlight: Faedah Totah

Written by Samaneh Oladi Ghadikolaei, Assistant Professor, School of World Studies

 

At Virginia Commonwealth University, Dr. Faedah Totah is a dedicated scholar  juggling her complex intersectional identities as a Palestinian-American scholar. Her commitment to VCU’s advancement is reflected in her role as the Coordinator of the International Studies program at the School of World Studies. Engaging in critical pedagogical praxis as a specialist in Middle Eastern studies, Faedah commits to building authentic relationships with her students and mentoring them through complex and contested sociopolitical issues....

Melis Hafez

Faculty Spotlight: Melis Hafez

Written by KT Shively, Associate Professor, Department of History

 

As the VCU community wrestles with ongoing violence in the Middle East, we are extremely fortunate to have Melis Hafez as a member of the history department. Melis is a specialist on the Ottoman Empire—a multi-ethnic polity that stretched across what is today called the Middle East and the Balkans—in the long nineteenth century. Her deeply-researched first book, Inventing Laziness: The Culture of Productivity in Late Ottoman Society (Cambridge University Press, 2021)....

Ana Edwards

Faculty Spotlight: Ana Edwards

Written by Daniel Sunshine, Postdoctoral Fellow, History Dept., and Associate Director, Health Humanities Lab

Ana Edwards has been championing the preservation of Black history in Richmond for more than two decades. She is the founder and chair of the Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project, a group that convinced the city to save Shockoe Bottom African Burial Ground, the original Black municipal cemetery in Richmond. Formerly desecrated by a parking lot, the burial ground is being restored to a place of remembrance under her leadership....

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