December 17, 2024
The art of curating
An appreciation for the aesthetics and history of art sparks senior Alexandra Gramuglia’s interest in curation.
School of Arts & Sciences Dean’s Annual Report
2023-24 Now Available!
A&S Next
Turn Your Education into a Career with Passion and Purpose.
You’re a Spider, so you dream big. You don’t want to land just any job after UR, but a purposeful career you’re passionate about.
A&S NEXT on Friday, Jan. 31 through Saturday, February 1, at the Marriott downtown Richmond in downtown Richmond, is a career program specifically for A&S students where we aim to give you the tools to understand your personal strengths and how you can translate your education into a career that you love. You’ll meet alums with unexpected and interesting career paths and you’ll gain hands-on experience exploring and solving real-world problems alongside alums and faculty who work to solve these problems in their own careers every day.
A&S Student Symposium
Each April, we celebrate our diverse community of learners at the A&S Student Symposium, a showcase of student-led research projects from nearly 30 disciplines in the arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences. Student researchers share their scholarly work with the campus community and the public through oral presentations, poster sessions, performances, and art exhibits.
FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 2025, 1 TO 6 P.M.
A&S Books & Roses
FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2025, 4:30-6 p.m. | HUMANITIES COMMONS
Join the A&S Dean’s Office for the third annual Books & Roses Celebration showcasing A&S faculty and staff books published between April 20, 2024 and April 20, 2025.
Books & Roses is inspired by two annual international celebrations: 1) Saint George’s Day (“Sant Jordi”) in Catalonia, where literature and love are distinctly intertwined in a massive display and exchange of books and roses, and 2) UNESCO World Book and Copyright Day. Both are typically celebrated on April 23, which also happens to be the birthdate of Cervantes and Shakespeare.
The festivities will include cupcakes, refreshments, music, and roses.
2024-20245 Tucker Boatwright Festival of Literature & the Arts
The Nature of Representation
The Nature of Representation asks how our understandings of “nature” have been shaped by representational practices in both the aesthetic and political senses, exploring how the current climate catastrophe is inextricable from colonialism and anthropocentric worldviews. The festival features contemporary writers, artists, and thinkers who don’t take for granted that language is merely human, that there are other “natural” languages, and that attuning to those other languages allows us to tell stories that disrupt the violence of Man.
"Art as a Vehicle for Change: a Conversation with Cathy Park Hong" with Chad Shomura.
Thursday, January 23, 4:30 p.m. | Humanities Commons
Cathy Park Hong is professor and Class of 1936 Chair in the College of Letters and Sciences at the University of California – Berkeley. She is the author of three volumes of poetry — Translating Mo’um, Dance Dance Revolution, Engine Empire — and the award-winning collection of essays, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning. She is the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Pushcart Prize, and the Windham-Campbell Prize, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
Chad Shomura is assistant professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado, Denver. His research interests include political thought, affect, biopolitics, new materialism, and ecology. His recent publications are in Theory & Event, American Quarterly, Oxford Encyclopedia of Asian American Literature and Culture, and Empire and Environment: Ecological Ruin in the Transpacific. Chad’s current book project, A Life Otherwise, examines minor assemblies of life that upset the good life.
Hosted by the Department of English.
Art & Art History: Frames of Reference Series
Brett Story, Film Screenings + Q&A
Program One: Wednesday, Jan. 29, 7 p.m.
Program Two: Thursday, Jan. 30, 7 p.m.
Jepson Hall 118
Join the Department of Art & Art History for the Frames of Reference series, an annual program of artists’ films and videos. The event is programmed and organized by Jeremy Drummond, associate professor in visual and media arts practice.
Frames of Reference showcases some of the most creative, challenging, thoughtful, and visionary artists working in film, video, and alternative media today. Programs feature artists and artworks that resist conventions and ideologies of mainstream media; explore creative, innovative approaches to narrative and experiments in time-based media; and embrace unique viewpoints, perspectives, or frames of reference.
Brett Story is an award-winning filmmaker and writer based in Toronto. Her films have screened in theatres and festivals internationally, including at CPH-DOX, SXSW, True/False, and Sheffield Doc/Fest. She is the director of the award-winning films The Prison in Twelve Landscapes (2016) and The Hottest August (2019), and author of the book Prison Land: Mapping Carceral Power Across Neoliberal America. The Hottest August was a New York Times Critics’ Pick and was called one of the ten best documentary films of 2019 by over a dozen publications, including Variety, Rolling Stone, and Vanity Fair.
Meet the 2024-25 Beckman Scholars
A&S students Marcos Hendler, of Rye, New York, and Aine MacDermott, of Lexington, Virginia, have each been awarded a prestigious Beckman Foundation Scholarship to support faculty-mentored student research in the sciences.
Beckman Scholars are selected among undergraduate biology and chemistry students based on commitment to research, strong academics, and potential to become scientific leaders. UR has had 26 Beckman Scholars since 2006.
Hendler, a chemistry major, is studying computational chemistry focused on molecules related to anticancer, which has implications in possible treatments. Hendler’s faculty mentor is chemistry professor Carol Parish. MacDermott, a biochemistry & molecular biology major, is researching ancient DNA under the mentorship of biology professor Melinda Yang. MacDermott is focused on the evolution of the alcohol metabolism gene ADH1B in present-day and ancient East Asian humans.
Humanities Center
2024-2025: How (And Why) Do We Represent Nature?
This question invites us to consider “representation” in both its political and aesthetic meaning. “Nature” is represented in paintings, poems, scripture, music, dancing, novels, laws, regulations, equations, activisms, advertising campaigns. This question asks how environments — and often their relations to human concerns — are represented across media, geographic and cultural contexts, and different historical moments.
A&S Feature Stories
December 10, 2024
Grant News
University of Richmond History Professor Receives National Park Service Grant For Research on Virginia School Desegregation
Pippa Holloway has received funding from the National Park Service for an exploration of the history of public school desegregation in Prince Edward County, Virginia.
December 3, 2024
Grant News
University of Richmond Geographers Awarded $800K NASA Grant for Research on Climate Impacts to Native Americans
This grant will support a collaborative project focusing on climate impacts on Native Americans in Virginia.
December 2, 2024
University of Richmond Beloved Holiday Tradition — Candlelight Festival of Lessons and Carols — is Dec. 8
Lessons and Carols is open to the campus and greater community.
AS Magazine Stores
Curriculum Vitae
The Goldwater whisperers
Research experiences and faculty mentorship are a powerful combination for Spiders competing for prestigious national fellowships and scholarships.
Voices
Hot seat
A Q&A with art professor Sandy Williams IV about their incredible melting Lincoln statue and the memes and discussions it sparked.
A&S Faculty in the News
December 19, 2024
Rats behind the wheel could unlock the key to human happiness
Behavioral neuroscientist Kelly Lambert is interviewed.
December 17, 2024
You think traffic was bad before? Now there are rats driving in Richmond.
Research by behavioral neuroscience professor Kelly Lambert is featured.
December 13, 2024
Rats learn to drive miniature cars and seem to enjoy it
Research by behavioral neuroscience professor Kelly Lambert is featured.
December 12, 2024
Dehydrating Food | Chemists in the Kitchen
In this YouTube series, chemistry professor Julie Pollock cohosts a show with fellow chemists to teach STEM lessons through cooking.
Events
Faculty Expertise
Do you envision college as a place where your professor’s office hours are spent in deep conversation about topics beyond this week’s assignment? Where you can work side-by-side with a faculty member on cutting-edge research that is published in a professional journal?
In A&S, our faculty are experts on the cutting edge of their fields. While they could work in some of the top research institutions in the world, our faculty chose Richmond because they believe in educating tomorrow's leaders and are passionate about mentoring and sharing their knowledge with students.
A&S Faculty Highlights
Feldman Presented
Sharon G. Feldman, William Judson Gaines Chair in Modern Foreign Languages and professor of Latin American, Latino, and Iberian Studies, gave the inaugural keynote lecture at a conference in El Vendrell, Spain, commemorating the centenary of the death of Catalan playwright Àngel Guimerà, and delivered two other invited talks on Guimerà at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Santa Cruz de Tenerife as part of the centenary celebrations.
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Wu and Undergraduate Students Published
Eugene Wu, associate professor of biology & biochemistry, along with Alex Robertson, '24, Henry Zhu, '24, Corina Stasiak, '24, Laura Murray-Nerger, '15, Emily Romanoff, '16, and Jesse Woon, '16, published "CD46 Is a Protein Receptor for Human Adenovirus Type 64" in Viruses.
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Barney Published
Timothy Barney, professor of rhetoric and communication studies, published “The Ghosts of Development: Speech, Money, and Global Subject-Making at the Ford Foundation and the Kenya Women Finance Trust” in Foreign Policy Rhetorics in a Global Era: Concepts and Case Studies.
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Leopold & Undergraduate Students Published
Michael C. Leopold, professor and Floyd D. and Elisabeth S. Gottwald Chair of chemistry, along with undergraduate students Charlie Sheppard, '26, Arielle Vinnikov, '27, Joyce Stern, '26, and Holly Wemple, '25, published “An Amperometric Sensor with Anti-Fouling Properties for Indicating Xylazine Adulterant in Beverages” in Micromachines. Their research is focused on developing a tool for detecting of a common “date rape” drug in beverages to protect potential victims and aid forensic investigations.
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Baker Promoted
Julie Baker was promoted to Senior Teaching Faculty of French. Dr. Baker is the director of the French Intensive Language Program, and her specialties include French and Francophone language and culture.
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Boone Promoted
Emily Boone was promoted to Senior Teaching Faculty of Biology. Her areas of expertise include marine ecology, physiological ecology, and environmental studies.
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Abreu Promoted
Dixon Abreu was promoted to Senior Teaching Faculty of Latin American, Latino, and Iberian Studies. Dr. Abreu is the director of Luso-Brazilian Studies and advises students studying abroad in Brazil.
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Van Gelder Promoted
Anne Norman Van Gelder was promoted to Senior Teaching Faculty of Theatre & Dance. Her specialties include dance history, choreography, and ballet and pointe technique.
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