Meet VCU Authors
Members of faculty in the humanities at VCU have an impressive record of scholarly productivity and are recognized, both nationally and internationally, for their significant contributions to our understanding of the human condition across cultures, throughout the past, and in the present. Our Meet VCU Authors series invites members of the Richmond community as well as colleagues and students from VCU and other local universities to come and meet VCU's authors as they talk about their recently published books and answer questions about their work. All are welcome!
2024-25
Dual Pandemics: HIV and the Coronavirus in Several Kenyan Communities
February 10, 2025
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 Kenyan Communities.
Building Embodiment: Integrating Acting, Voice, and Movement to Illuminate Poetic Text
February 24, 2025
The speakers for this event are Karen Kopryanski, Associate Professor and Head of Voice and Speech in the Department of Theatre at VCUarts, and Baron Kelly, the Marilynn R. Baxter Professor of Theatre and Drama and Vilas Distinguished Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Between Here and There: Creating the Political Economy of Mexican Migration
March 3, 2025
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.
The Arab Nahda as Popular Entertainment: Mass Culture and Modernity in the Middle East
March 24, 2025
Hala Auji is an Associate Professor of Art History and the Hamad bin Khalifa Endowed Chair of Islamic Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, and the co-author of The Arab Nahda as Popular Entertainment: Mass Culture and Modernity in the Middle East.
Women, Faith, and Family: Reclaiming Gender Justice through Religious Activism
March 31, 2025
Samaneh Olad Ghadikolaei, Ph.D is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, and the author of Women, Faith, and Family: Reclaiming Gender Justice through Religious Activism.
The Bad Corset: A Feminist Reimagining
April 7, 2025
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.
Past Events
Cyborgs, Ethics, and the Matrix: Simulations of Sex and Gender [video]
The speaker for this event was Rebecca Gibson, Assistant Teaching Professor of Anthropology in the School of World Studies at VCU.
Tales of Koehler Hollow: An African American Family in Rural Appalachia
The speaker for this event was Christopher Brooks, Professor of Anthropology in the School of World Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Writing Pathways Out of Patriarchy: The Creative Research Behind “The Great Cool Ranch Dorito in the Sky” [video]
The speaker for this event was Josh Galarza, who discussed the journey behind writing his young adult debut, The Great Cool Ranch Dorito in the Sky.
Entitled Opinions: Doxa After Digitality [video]
The speaker for this event was Caddie Alford, 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.
Isolation and Engagement: Presidential Decision Making on Foreign Policy from Kennedy to Nixon [video]
The speaker for this event was 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.
Race in the Multiethnic Literature Classroom [video]
The speakers for this event were Luis A. Cortes, Jennifer Ho, Shermaine M. Jones and Kevin Pyon, moderatored by Cristina Stanciu and Gary Totten.
Critical AI: A Field in Formation [video]
The speakers for this event were Jennifer Rhee, Associate Professor of English at VCU; Rita Raley, Professor of English at UC Santa Barbara, and J.D. Schnepf, faculty member at University of Groningen.
Graphic Narratives and Visual Storytelling: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Shakti [video]
The speaker for this event was SJ Sindu, Assistant Professor of English at VCU and author of Shakti.
Exploring the Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection with David Shields [video]
The speaker for this event was David Shields, Associate Professor of Graphic Design at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Teaching the History of the Book [video]
The moderators for this panel were Matteo Pangallo and Emily Todd, co-editors of
Teaching the History of the Book.
The Price of Truth: The Journalist Who Defied Military Censors to Report the Fall of Nazi Germany [video]
The speaker for this event is Richard Fine, Professor Emeritus in the English department at VCU, and author of The Price of Truth: The Journalist Who Defied Military Censors to Report the Fall of Nazi Germany.
The Makings and Unmakings of Americans: Indians and Immigrants in American Culture [video]
The speaker for this event was Cristina Stanciu, Associate Professor of English at VCU and author of The Makings and Unmakings of Americans: Indians and Immigrants in American Literature and Culture, 1879-1924.
Cliffhanger!: The First Movie Superheroes [video]
Christopher Irving, Assistant Professor, Communication Arts, presented the history of the first superhero movies, the 1940s cliffhanger serials.
A Decolonizing Ear: Documentary Film Disrupts the Archive [video]
The speaker for this event was Olivia Landry, Associate Professor in the School of World Studies at VCU and author of A Decolonizing Ear: Documentary Film Disrupts the Archive.
African Musicians in the Atlantic World: Legacies of Sound and Slavery [video]
The speaker for this event was Mary Caton Lingold, Associate Professor of English and director of the PhD Program in Media, Art, and Text (MATX) at VCU, and author of African Musicians in the Atlantic World: Legacies of Sound and Slavery.
Interconnections: The Research and Writing Process for ‘Joy Rides Through the Tunnel of Grief’ [video]
The speaker for this event was Jessica Hendry Nelson, Assistant Professor in the MFA program and English Department at Virginia Commonwealth University, and author of Joy Rides through the Tunnel of Grief.
Reading the Invisible Script: How Black Dance Pioneers of the 1930s-40s Danced Between the Lines
The speaker for this event was E. Gaynell Sherrod, dance educator, choreographer, historian, and professor in the Department of Dance + Choreography at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Pipeline Populism: Grassroots Environmentalism in the 21st Century [video]
The speaker for this event was Kai Bosworth, Ph.D., assistant professor of international studies in the School of World Studies at VCU and author of "Pipeline Populism: Grassroots Environmentalism in the 21st Century."
Almost Dead: Slavery and Social Rebirth in the Black Urban Atlantic [video]
The speaker for this event was Michael Lawrence Dickinson, assistant professor of African American history at VCU and author of "Almost Dead: Slavery and Social Rebirth in the Black Urban Atlantic."
Ageism Unmasked [video]
The speaker for this event was Tracey Gendron, associate professor and Chair of the Department of Gerontology at VCU and author of "Ageism Unmasked: Exploring Age Bias and How to End it."
Inventing Laziness: The Culture of Productivity in Late Ottoman Society
The speaker for this event was Melis Hafez, associate professor of History at VCU and author of "Inventing Laziness: The Culture of Productivity in Late Ottoman Society."
Silver Veins, Dusty Lungs: Mining, Water, and Public Health in Zacatecas, 1835-1946 [video]
The speaker for this event was Rocío Gomez, assistant professor in Latin American History at VCU and author of "Silver Veins, Dusty Lungs: Mining, Water, and Public Health in Zacatecas, 1835-1946."
Dismantling Institutional Whiteness: Emerging Forms of Leadership in Higher Education [video]
The speakers for this event were Mangala Subramaniam, Senior Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and Professor of Sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University, and M. Cristina Alcalde, Vice President of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion and Professor of Global and Intercultural Studies at Miami University.
Travel and African American Imagination [video]
The speakers for this event were Michael Ra-shon Hall, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of English at VCU, and Kimberly Nichele Brown, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies (GSWS) at VCU.
The Unexpected Dante: A Mystery Solved [video]
The speaker for this event was Bernardo Piciché, Associate Professor of International Studies in the School of World Studies at VCU.
The Unrepentant Oscar Wilde
The speaker for this event was Nicholas Frankel, Ph.D., Professor of English at VCU, and author or editor of many books about Oscar Wilde, including, "Oscar Wilde: The Unrepentant Years."
Death and Rebirth in a Southern City: Richmond [video]
The speaker for this event was Ryan K. Smith, Ph.D., professor in the Department of History in the College of Humanities and Sciences at VCU and author of "Death and Rebirth in a Southern City: Richmond's Historic Cemeteries."
Teaching Language Online: A Guide for Designing, Developing, and Delivering Online, Blended, and Flipped Language Courses [video]
The speaker for this event was Kathryn Murphy-Judy, Ph.D., professor of French, in the School of World Studies in the College of Humanities and Sciences at VCU and co-author with Victoria Russell of "Teaching Language Online: A Guide for Designing, Developing, and Delivering Online, Blended, and Flipped Language Courses." She will be in conversation with Betsy Starnes of Virtual Virginia.
Oscar Wilde in America: Forging Identity on the Lecture Tour [video]
The speaker for this event was Robert Volpicelli, Ph.D., associate professor of English at Randolph-Macon College, in conversation with Nick Frankel, Ph.D., professor in the Department of English in the College of Humanities and Sciences at VCU, about Volpicelli's book "Transatlantic Modernism and U.S. Lecture Tour."
African American Families: Research, Theories, and Practice [video]
The speaker for this event was Faye Z. Belgrave, Ph.D., university professor in the Department of Psychology in the College of Humanities and Sciences at VCU and co-author of "African American Families: Research, Theories, and Practice."
Gerrymandering the States: Partisanship, Race, and the Transformation of American Federalism [video]
The speaker for this event was Alex Keena, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Political Science in the College of Humanities and Sciences at VCU and co-author of "Gerrymandering the States: Partisanship, Race, and the Transformation of American Federalism." He will be in conversation with Michael Latner, Ph.D., professor of political science at California Polytechnic State University and senior fellow at the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Center for Science and Democracy.
Difficult Moments in Teaching Social Justice
The speakers for this event were Kim Case, Ph.D., and Salena Brody, Ph.D. Case, who is the director of the Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence at VCU, is co-author of "Navigating Difficult Moments in Teaching Diversity and Social Justice." Brody, professor of psychology at The University of Texas at Dallas, contributed a chapter on white privilege and how it functions in the classroom.
The Child Code: Understanding Your Child's Unique Nature for Happier, More Effective Parenting [video]
The speaker for this event was Danielle Dick, Ph.D., Greg Brown Endowed Chair in Neuroscience at Rutgers University and author of "The Child Code: Understanding Your Child's Unique Nature for Happier, More Effective Parenting."
The Material and Expressive Aspects of Articulage [video]
The speaker for this virtual event was Massa Lemu, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Sculpture + Extended Media in the VCU School of the Arts.
Aiding and Abetting: Understanding the Impact of Foreign Aid on Political Violence [video]
The speaker for this virtual event was Jessica Trisko Darden, Ph.D., assistant professor in the VCU Department of Political Science, and author of "Aiding and Abetting: U.S. Foreign Assistance and State Violence."
"Desert Passions" and Tales of Timbuktu [video]
The speaker for this virtual event was Patricia W. Cummins, Ph.D., professor of french in the VCU School of World Studies, and translator of "Desert Passions."
Domestic Captivity and the British Subject, 1660-1750 [video]
The speaker for this event was Catherine Ingrassia, Ph.D., Chair and Professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University.
An American Friendship: Horace Kallen, Alain Locke, and the Development of Cultural Pluralism [video]
The speaker for this event was David Weinfeld, a visiting assistant professor of Religious Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA, where he also holds the Harry Lyons Chair in Judaic Studies.
The Strange Genius of Mr. O: The World of the United States' First Forgotten Celebrity [video]
"The Strange Genius of Mr. O" is at once the biography of a remarkable performer—a gaunt Scottish orator who appeared in a toga—and a story of the United States during the founding era. Ogilvie's career featured many of the hallmarks of celebrity we recognize from later eras: glamorous friends, eccentric clothing, scandalous religious views, narcissism and even an alarming drug habit. Yet he captivated audiences with his eloquence and inaugurated a golden age of American oratory. Examining his roller coaster career and the Americans who admired (or hated) him, this fascinating book renders a vivid portrait of the United States in the midst of invention.
The Archeology of Virginia’s First Peoples
Although Jamestown is fixed in the minds of many as the birthplace of Virginia history, Virginia has a heritage stretching back more than 14,000 years before the first Europeans set foot in the Americas. Ten leading archaeologists gathered together to draw on decades of archaeological investigations and to explore the heritage of Virginia’s first peoples in "The Archaeology of Virginia’s First Peoples." Virginia has some of the earliest archaeological evidence for humans in the Americas. This edited volume begins with a landscape alien to us today, when Virginia’s Indians lived in a harsh Ice Age environment alongside giant ground sloths, mammoths, mastodons and a host of other animals that became extinct ten millennia ago.
This talk briefly covers all aspects of Virginia’s first peoples over a 14,000-year period, and then focuses on those who lived in palisaded villages as farmers along the Potomac River in northern Virginia—at the time a major “highway” from the Atlantic Coast into America's interior.
World of Echo: Noise and Knowing in Late-Medieval England
Late medieval England was an age of ferment and noise as broad swathes of society—from laborers and artisans to university-educated theologians—sought to distribute knowledge and the authority that came with it outside of secular and church hierarchy. This talk examines Chaucer's attunement to the hubbub of the common voice in his early dream vision, "The House of Fame," where the noises of rumor and gossip emerge as a means of distributing authority and cultivating relational ways of being and knowing grounded in sensory experience and resonance.
Confronting Totalitarian Minds: Jan Potočka on Politics and Dissidence [video]
Brinton will discuss how her new book is relevant to contemporary political movements. Jan Patočka was a Czech philosopher who not only lived through the turbulent politics of twentieth-century Central Europe, but he shaped his intellectual contributions in response to that tumult. He died in 1977 from medical complications resulting from interrogations by the secret police after he was arrested for being involved in the Charter 77 movement in Czechoslovakia. Brinton’s book explains his work in light of different forms of activism and dissidence. His ideas about confronting totalitarianism, living in truth and finding “solidarity of the shaken” are relevant to many times and places, including today, and thus shed light on how we might face our own political distress.
The River Twice [video]
Professor of English and Creative Writing Kathleen Graber will read from and discuss her recent collection of poems, The River Twice (Princeton UP, 2019), winner of the UNT Rilke Prize, University of North Texas. According to the publisher’s website, “Taking its title from Heraclitus’s most famous fragment, The River Twice is an elegiac meditation on impermanence and change. The world presented in these poems is a fluid one in which so much—including space and time, the subterranean realm of dreams, and language itself—seems protean, as the speaker’s previously familiar understanding of the self and the larger systems around it gives way. Kathleen Graber’s poems wander widely, from the epistolary to the essayistic, shuffling the remarkable and unremarkable flotsam of contemporary life. One thought, one memory, one bit of news flows into the next. Yet, in a century devoted to exponentially increasing speed, The River Twice unfolds at the slow pace of a river bend. While the warm light of ideas and things flashes upon the surface, that which endures remains elusive—something glimpsed only for an instant before it is gone.”
Fabulous: The Rise of the Beautiful Eccentric [video]
What does it mean to be fabulous? Is fabulous style only about labels, narcissism and selfies—looking good and feeling gorgeous? Or can acts of fabulousness be political gestures, too? In what ways is fabulous style a defiant response to the struggles of living while marginalized? madison moore answers these questions in a timely and fascinating book that explores how queer, brown and other marginalized outsiders use ideas, style and creativity in everyday life.
Thick: And Other Essays
In eight highly praised treatises on beauty, media, money, and more, Tressie McMillan Cottom—award-winning professor and acclaimed author of "Lower Ed"—is unapologetically “thick”: deemed “thick where I should have been thin, more where I should have been less,” McMillan Cottom refuses to shy away from blending the personal with the political, from bringing her full self and voice to the fore of her analytical work. Thick “transforms narrative moments into analyses of whiteness, black misogyny, and status-signaling as means of survival for black women” (Los Angeles Review of Books) with “writing that is as deft as it is amusing” (Darnell L. Moore).
Global Tarantella: Reinventing Southern Italian Folk Music and Dances
Examining tarantella’s changing image and role among Italians and Italian Americans, Dr. Inserra illuminates how factors like tourism, translation and world music venues have transformed the tarantella cultural tradition, prompting a reassessment of gender relations in the Italian South and helping to create space for Italian and Italian American women as they reclaim gendered aspects of the genre.
A Dark Inheritance: Blood, Race and Sex in Colonial Jamaica
Dr. Newman’s new book provides a major reassessment of the development of race and subjecthood in the British Atlantic. It shows how colonial racial ideologies rooted in fictions of blood ancestry at once justified hereditary African slavery and barred members of marginalized groups from claiming the inherited rights of British subjects.
Meet VCU's Authors Series in Local Libraries
VCU’s authors visit local libraries to speak on a variety of topics:
- Emilie Raymond, professor of history at Virginia Commonwealth University, discussed her book "Stars for Freedom" about the civil rights movement and black celebrities.
- Kathryn Shively, associate professor of history, discussed her book "Nature’s Civil War: Common Soldiers and the Environment in 1862 Virginia."
- As part of a multi-country project exploring spiritual experiences in different religions and cultures, Dr. Vivian Dzokoto, associate professor of African American Studies, interviewed traditional priests at the shrines of African deities in rural Ghana during the summer of 2017. This talk was a reflection on what she observed there.
- David Coogan, associate professor of English, discussed his book "Writing Our Way Out," the creative culmination of a writing class that began in the Richmond City Jail in Virginia, and grew into a journey to re-entry.
- Gregory Smithers, professor of history, discussed his book "The Cherokee Diaspora: An Indigenous History of Migration, Resettlement, and Identity."
- Bernard Means, project director for the Virtual Curation Laboratory, discussed his visits to India and attempts to preserve historical artifacts with 3-D scanning technology.
- Brian J. Daugherity, associate professor of history, discussed his book "Keep on Keeping On," the first book to offer a comprehensive view of African Americans’ efforts to obtain racial equality in Virginia in the later twentieth century.
- Gregory Smithers, professor of history, discussed his book "Native Southerners," a sweeping narrative of American Indian history in the Southeast from the time before European colonialism to the Trail of Tears and beyond.
Prevention: Gender, Sexuality, HIV, and the Media in Côte d’Ivoire
In 2016, approximately 70% of people living around the globe with HIV/AIDS were in sub-Saharan Africa. After delayed governmental responses there, the media has become an essential tool for prevention. Yet HIV prevention campaigns reflect multiple conflicting, shifting agendas that encompass far more than the imparting of information about how to limit the spread of the virus. In this incisive and thought-provoking book, Christine Cynn examines global HIV prevention efforts to reshape gender, sexuality, and notions of family in line with neoliberal ideas and goals.
Gay Inc.: The Nonprofitization of Queer Politics
In this bold and provocative book, Myrl Beam argues that the conservative turn in queer movement politics is due largely to the movement’s embrace of the nonprofit structure. Drawing on oral histories, archival research, and the author’s own activist work, Gay, Inc. looks at how LGBT nonprofits in Minneapolis and Chicago have grappled with the contradictions between radical queer social movements and their institutionalization.
The Robotic Imaginary: The Human and the Price of Dehumanized Labor
In this absorbing and insightful book, Jennifer Rhee traces the provocative and productive connections of contemporary robots in technology, film, art, and literature. Focusing on the twinned processes of anthropomorphization and dehumanization, she analyzes the coevolution of cultural and technological robots and artificial intelligence, arguing that it is through the conceptualization of the human and the dehumanized that these multiple spheres affect and transform each other.
Once Upon a Shrine: Stories from an Unusual Field Site
Researchers collect data in many different places. Laboratories, online, archives, homes, organizations (such as schools and churches), and neighborhoods are the usual suspects. Yet some researchers gather information at more unusual research sites. As part of a multi-country project exploring spiritual experiences in different religions and cultures, Dr. Vivian Dzokoto interviewed traditional priests at the shrines of African deities in rural Ghana during the summer of 2017. This talk is a reflection on what she observed there. It explores the roles of traditional priests in West Africa (including as health and mental health care providers, problem-solvers, and diviners); how Dr. Dzokoto gained access to the target population; and the trouble shooting required to make the data collection process a success.
On the Rooftop of the World: 3D Archaeology in Far North India
The state of Uttarakhand in northern India is known as the “Land of the Gods” because of the numerous pilgrimage centers scattered across this rugged landscape, situated in the foothills of the Himalayas. Beginning in August 2015, Dr. Bernard Means traveled to Uttarakhand and began an ambitious project working with archaeologists at Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University in Srinagar to document important sculptures and other artifacts from these temples, using 3-D digital scanning technology to make them more accessible both to people in northern India and across the globe. Dr. Means, one of the leading exponents of 3-D scanning technology, discusses in this talk his visit to India and the broader implications of using new scanning methods to document and disseminate historical evidence.
Playwriting Playgoers in Shakespeare’s Theater
Among the dramatists who wrote for the professional playhouses of early modern London was a small group of writers who were neither members of the commercial theater industry writing to make a living nor aristocratic amateurs dipping their toes in theatrical waters for social or political prestige. Instead, they were largely working- and middle-class amateurs who had learned most of what they knew about drama from being members of the audience. Dr. Matteo Pangallo’s new book, Playwriting Playgoers in Shakespeare’s Theater (University of Pennsylvania Press 2017) takes us into the world of this distinct group of authors, showing what these audience members wanted to see and how they thought actors might stage it, how they understood playhouse materials and practices; and how they crafted poetry for theatrical effects. More broadly, Dr. Pangallo reveals how the emergence of England’s first commercialized culture industry gave rise to the first generation of participatory consumers and explores their attempts to engage with mainstream culture by writing early modern “fan fiction.”
Keep On Keeping On: The NAACP and the Implementation of Brown v. Board of Education in Virginia
Virginia was a battleground state in the struggle to implement the Supreme Court’s historic Brown v. Board of Education decision. "Keep On Keeping On" is the first book to offer a comprehensive view of how African Americans and the NAACP in Virginia secured new educational opportunities for the state’s black population despite fierce opposition and a program of noncompliance crafted by the state’s political leaders. This book sheds new light on the civil rights movement and resistance to civil rights in Virginia and the South.
Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy
Until recently American institutions of higher education have been driven not by the profit motive but a mission to train, educate, and cultivate minds. Yet today more than two million students are enrolled at for-profit colleges. Lower Ed is the first book to link the rapid growth of for-profit degrees to America’s increasing inequality, revealing the story of an industry that exploits the pain, desperation, and aspirations of people in vulnerable circumstances. The author draws on her own experience as a former admissions counselor at two for-profit colleges as well as over one hundred interviews with students, senior executives, and activists to detail how these schools have become so successful and to examine the benefits, pitfalls, and real costs of a for-profit education.
The Primitive Observatory
The poems of "The Primitive Observatory," set in the late nineteenth century, take readers into a dreamy, alluring world where hapless travelers, doomed heirs, and other colorful types grapple with horrors. Within the pages of this book, Kimbrell explores such themes as memory, class prejudice, family violence, and greed in a flamboyant, yet matter-of-fact, style that is both amusing and unsettling. "The Primitive Observatory" offers a dark, evocative and entertainingly grotesque experience.