The speakers for this event are Luis A. Cortes, Jennifer Ho, Shermaine M. Jones and Kevin Pyon, moderatored by Cristina Stanciu and Gary Totten.

The speaker for this event is William Newmann, Associate Professor of Political Science at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of Isolation and Engagement: Presidential Decision Making on China from Kennedy, to Nixon.

The speakers for this event are Rohan Kalyan, Gabriela León-Pérez, Brooke Newman and Ryan Smith.

Paula M. Krebs became executive director of the Modern Language Association in August 2017. She administers the programs, governance, and business affairs of the association and is general editor of the association’s publishing and research programs, as well as editor of two association publications. She serves as an ex officio member of all committees and commissions of the association, chairs the committee that oversees the planning of the association’s annual convention, works with the MLA’s trustees in evaluating and implementing investments of the MLA’s endowment funds, and chairs the staff Finance Committee.

J. Molina-Garcia is a Salvadoran-American media artist, writer, and educator. A citizen of the Global South and an American Dreamer, J’s research engages mystical and esoteric traditions of ancient Mesoamerica, South and Southeast Asia, and Pan-African spirituality. In this pursuit, she synthesizes marginalized realms of knowledge alongside science, science-fiction, non-western philosophy, and leftist political theory.

As director of undergraduate initiatives at the National Humanities Alliance, Scott Muir leads the efforts to forward innovation in undergraduate humanities education and attract a broader range of students to the humanities. He is host of the podcast What Are You Going to Do with That? and the author of Strategies for Recruiting Students to the Humanities: A Comprehensive Resource (2021) and Expanding Access to Undergraduate Humanities Education: Models and Strategies (2024). Scott completed a doctorate in religious studies at Duke University and has taught at Western Carolina University. 

Join us for short presentations by faculty and students in our labs, as they discuss their ongoing research and initiatives. What makes a humanities lab? Why should you get involved? Speakers from the Environmental Humanities Lab, Abolition Lab, Health Humanities Lab, Memory Studies Lab, Graphic Narratives Lab, and AI Futures Lab will be joining the panel.

Join us for a roundtable Q&A with alumni from the Media, Art & Text (MATX) program, and see how far a PhD in the humanities can take you!

Mar Hicks, PhD is an author, historian, and professor doing research on hidden histories of computing, as well as the history of labor and technology. Hicks is currently an Associate Professor at The University of Virginia's School of Data Science, in Charlottesville, teaching courses on the history of technology, computing and society, and the larger implications of powerful and widespread digital infrastructures. Their research focuses on how gender and sexuality bring hidden technological dynamics to light, and how the experiences of women and LGBTQIA people change the core narratives of the history of computing in unexpected ways.

Join us in celebrating the Humanities Research Center's 10th anniversary!

Caddie Alford is Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Writing in the Department of English at VCU, and affiliate faculty in the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies. Her rhetorical studies research interrogates emerging social media forms of persuasion and sociality, such as how the technics of private Facebook groups radicalize publics or how digitality intensifies fascist appeals.

Paulina Guerrero is an artist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her research interests and writing center on folklore, gender, reproductive health/rights/justice, Latinx feminisms, and feminist ecologies. Her extensive experience in reproductive rights, health, and justice led her to become the National Programs Director of All-Options; a reproductive justice organization that supports folks in all of their pregnancy experiences including parenting, abortion, and adoption.

Matthew F. Bokovoy is senior acquisitions editor for Native American and Indigenous Studies, Cultural Anthropology, History of Anthropology, Ethnography, Global Borderlands History, Memoir, and General Nonfiction of the American West at University of Nebraska Press, with over 60 award-winning books. He previously worked at University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, and Oklahoma State University in history of the American West, US social history, architecture and urbanism, and US and European cultural and intellectual history.

Longtime Montessori educator Josh Galarza writes fiction and creative nonfiction, and is a multidisciplinary visual artist specializing in printmaking and book arts. His research centers around male gender performance, queer issues, body liberation and Chicano studies. Galarza earned his BA in English and BFA in Art from the University of Nevada, Reno, where he later taught printmaking. He currently lives in Richmond, VA, where he teaches in the English Department at Virginia Commonwealth University while completing an MFA in creative writing.

Christopher Brooks is Professor of Anthropology in the School of World Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, and author of Tales of Koehler Holler: An African American Family in Rural Appalachia.

Rebecca Gibson is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Anthropology in the School of World Studies at VCU. Dr. Gibson's research spans a multitude of topics, from historical biological anthropology, to whether or not zombies have gender, to cyborgs and robotic technology.

Wendy Hui Kyong Chun is Canada 150 Research Chair in New Media, Professor in the School of Communication, and Director of the Digital Democracies Institute at Simon Fraser University. At the Institute, she leads the Mellon-funded Data Fluencies Project, which combines the interpretative traditions of the arts and humanities with critical work in the data sciences to express, imagine, and create innovative engagements with (and resistances to) our data-filled world.

Dr. Arica L. Coleman is an award-winning, nationally recognized American historian and independent scholar whose research focuses on comparative ethnic studies and racial formation and identity issues. Her additional research interests include indigeneity, immigration/migration, interracial relations, mixed-race identity, race and gender intersections, sexuality, the politics of race and science, and popular culture.

A member of the Patawomeck Indian Tribe of Virginia, Lora Chilton tells the story of her people and their unlikely survival due to the courage of three Patawomeck women. As a part of the process, she interviewed tribal elders, researched colonial documents and studied the Patawomeck language. Chilton graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing. She has worked as a Registered Nurse, a small business owner, an elected official, a non-profit executive and a writer. Memphis is her home. 1666: A Novel is her second work of historical fiction.

Christopher Brooks is Professor of Anthropology in the School of World Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, and author of Dual Pandemics: HIV and the Coronavirus in Several Communities.

Daniel Morales is an Assistant Professor of History at Virginia Commonwealth University specializing in Latino, immigration, and public history. He is from Azusa California and earned his Ph.D. in history from Columbia University in 2016, and B.A. at the University of Chicago in 2008. His research focuses on the social and economic history of migration between Latin America and the United States.