Academic News (News2Note)

News2Note, the academic newsletter of the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, is published monthly during the academic year by Debra Stoudt, associate dean for policy and faculty affairs. Academic news can be submitted to her directly at dstoudt@vt.edu.

More than 30 middle school students from the New River and Roanoke valleys participated in Big Ideas in the Humanities:  A Saturday Enrichment Experience in recent weeks.  Hosted by the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences and directed by Clint Whitten, a postdoctoral associate in the School of Education and the Center for Rural Education, the four-week pilot program provided students the opportunity to study humanities-centered topics through linguistics, literature, creative fantasy writing, philosophy, and theatre courses.  The program was free to participants and was taught by Virginia Tech professors, students, and community experts, including many in the College.

Ralph Buehler, Public and International Affairs, was selected as a 2025 Senior Fellow at the Technische Universität Dresden (TU Dresden University of Technology) in Dresden, Germany.  From January 20 through May 31 he is being hosted by the “Friedrich List” Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences in the Institute of Transport Planning and Road Traffic at the TUD, where he is conducting a comparative study of traffic behavior of children and young people in Germany and the U.S. over a period of approximately 20 years.  The Dresden Fellowship Program focuses on fostering cooperation and initiating long-term cooperation strategies for institutions and project groups at TUD and its Dresden-concept partners.  An interview with Buehler about his stay as a Dresden Fellow is available here.  In addition, Buehler published “Verkehrsverbund:  Regional Coordination of Public Transport in Germany, Austria and Switzerland,” Handbook of Transportation and Public Policy, ed. Anthony Perl, Rosalie Singerman Ray, and Louise Reardon (Cheltenham, United Kingdom, and Northampton, Massachusetts:  Edward Elgar Publishing 2025), pp. 90–105.

Mauro Caraccioli, Political Science and ASPECT Core Faculty, published “Everywhere and Nowhere:  Teaching Liberalism from the Margins,” The Palgrave Handbook on the Pedagogy of International Relations Theory, ed. Jamie Frueh et al. (Cham, Switzerland:  Springer Nature/Palgrave Macmillan, 2024), pp. 185–96, and “Learning How to Count:  Pedagogies of Accountability in the Pandemic University” in the Journal of International Political Theory special issue “Pedagogy and Power” 20.3 (2024):  283–95.  In addition, in response to the “Author Meets Critics” Book Forum about his book Writing the New World:  The Politics of Natural History in the Early Spanish Empire (Gainesville, Florida:  University of Florida Press, 2021) in Millennium: Journal of International Studies 52.3 (December 2024):  749–70, Caraccioli published “Writing from the Ruins” in the same journal issue, pp. 770–81.

Amanda Demmer, History, published “Normalizing Relations from the Cold War to the Present: Continuing War, Pursuing Peace, and Building Empire,” Modern American History 7.3 (2024):  343–62, with Christopher McKnight Nichols.  In addition, Demmer received the 2025 Stuart L. Bernath Lecture Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.  The prize recognizes and encourages excellence in teaching and research by younger scholars in the field of foreign relations.  Demmer was recognized for her 2021 book, After Saigon’s Fall, and her current project on human rights activist Ginetta Sagan.

Tom Ewing, Professor of History and Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research, coedited Challenging Stories:  Exploring the Intersections Between Health and the Humanities (Blacksburg, Virginia:  Virginia Tech Publishing, 2024) with Rhetoric and Writing alumna Priyanka Ganguly.  His individual contributions to the volume were:  “Introduction:  Challenging Stories” with Ganguly and “La Grippe’s Fearful Work:  Data and Narrative During the 1889–1892 Influenza in Alabama,” pp. 1–8 and 50–68, respectively.  The book is available online via Open Access/Virginia Tech Publishing here.

The College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences raised $942,810 from 1,466 donors during Virginia Tech’s Giving Day, which took place February 19–20.  With strong support from faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends, CLAHS surpassed last year’s dollars raised by 201% and total donors by 16%.  This year the CLAHS Advancement Team, led by Assistant Dean Michael Webb, provided two College-wide challenges with the generous support of the CLAHS Dean’s Roundtable.  The following departments and school surpassed their Dean’s Roundtable Giving Day Challenge goal and received an additional $5,000:  Apparel, Housing and Resource Management; History; Human Development and Family Science; Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures; Philosophy; Political Science; Public and International Affairs; Religion and Culture; Science, Technology, and Society; and Sociology.  In addition, the following units were recognized as the top four in the Beat Your Best Challenge:  Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Appalachian Studies; Department of Sociology, and Family Therapy Center.  Thanks to the CLAHS Advancement Team and to everyone whose contribution helped make Giving Day a success.

Aarnes Gudmestad, Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures, published “The Interpretation of Verbal Moods in Spanish:  A Close Replication of Kanwit and Geeslin (2014),” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 46.5 (2024):  1337–54, with Amanda Edmonds, Carlos Henderson, and Christina Lindqvist.

Anthony Kwame Harrison, Alumni Distinguished Professor of Sociology, published “Writing Black Life in Mountains:  Race and Representation in an Emerging American Literary Field,” Journal of Alpine Research/Revue de géographie alpine 112–3 (2024), and in French translation as “La vie des Noir·es dans les montagnes:  race et représentation dans un domaine littéraire américain émergent” in the same journal in 113–4 (2025).

Kenneth Hodges, English, published “Buddha and the Grail:  Speaking of the Unstable World in Barlam and Iosaphat and Malory’s Le Morte Darthur,” Language, Linguistics and Middle English Literature:  Essays in Honor of Karla Taylor, ed. Elizabeth Allen and Catherine Sanok (Woodbridge, United Kingdom:  Boydell & Brewer, 2025), pp. 117–40.

Jeff Mann, English, published Highland Moon (Maple Shade, New Jersey:  Lethe Press/Unzipped Books, 2024), with Henry Z.

Gabriel Mitchell, a Planning, Governance, and Globalization doctoral student and Director of Undergraduate Studies at the University of Notre Dame in Jerusalem, published “Making Deals, Building Corridors:  Trump’s Middle East Moment” on the platform War on the Rocks on January 28.

ASPECT doctoral student Rebekah Mui Pei Ern published “The Sexual Violences of Empire, Patriarchy, and Crucifixion,” Priscilla Papers 29.1 (2025):  14–18.

Paula Seniors, Religion and Culture, gave the keynote address, “Mae Mallory, the Monroe Defense Committee and World Revolutions,” at the 45^th Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series, which took place February 15 at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey.

Max Stephenson, Jr., Professor of Public and International Affairs and Director of the Institute for Policy and Governance, published “‘Magic Concepts’ and USAID:  Framing Food Systems Reform to Support the Status Quo,” Development Policy Review 43.1 (January 2025), e12823, with Lia Kelinsky-Jones and Kim Niewolny.

Max Stephenson, Jr., Professor of Public and International Affairs and Director of the Institute for Policy and Governance (IPG), and IPG research associate Neda Moayerian published “Plus Ça Change:  The Politics of Alterity, and Italian and Maltese Responses to Recent Migration Challenges,” Athens Journal of Politics & International Affairs 1.2 (June 2025):  111–32.  Stephenson and Moayerian also published “Phronetic Planning’s Janus Face:  Charting Elite Advantage in Tehran’s Land Use Decisions,” Land 14.1 (2025), Article 127, with Mohammadmehdi Panahi.

Laura Zanotti, Political Science, published “Cosmologies, Coloniality, and Quantum Critique:  Exploring Conversations with Native American Ways of Knowing,” Journal of International Political Theory 21.1 (February 2025):  60–79.