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Affiliate Bookshelf

This Past Was Waiting for Me by Sarah Trembath

This Past Was Waiting for Me: A Chronicle at Quarter Century

Sarah Trembath

In this groundbreaking, genre-bending book, Trembath braids poetry, art, personal essay, and scholarly analysis to salvage Black history from its misconstructions and misrememberings. This Past Was Waiting for Me distills Trembath’s decades-long body of academic and artistic work into a cohesive artistic experience that drives empathy and combats misinformation. 

Lazuli Literary Group, 2026

Scrap Theory by Mali Collins

Scrap Theory: Reproductive Injustice in the Black Feminist Imagination

Mali J. Collins

Turning her attention to visual and written works by Black women documenting mother–child separation, Mali D. Collins invites us to deploy a theory of “scraps” to understand the ways that the lives of Black mothers and children are documentations of centuries of racialized and gendered torment.

The Ohio State University Press, 2025

Corrections at Work by TaLisa J. Carter

Corrections at Work: A Call for Institutional Accountability

TaLisa J. Carter

Reframing the conversation around mass incarceration, Corrections at Work shifts focus from the individual failures of officers to the relationship between employee and organization, and places responsibility on the institutions accountable for the mistreatment of inmates.

NYU Press, 2025

Reunited by Ernesto Castaneda and Daniel Jenks

Reunited: Family Separation and Central American Youth Migration

Ernesto Casteñeda and Daniel Jenks

Offering a complex exploration of youth migration and family reunification, Reunited provides a moving account of how young Central American migrants make the journey north and ultimately reintegrate with their families in the United States.

Russell Sage Foundation, 2024

White Power by Gautham Rao

White Power: Policing American Slavery

Gautham Rao

Moving across time, space, and place, White Power uncovers how slaveholders created their own white supremacist police and government to deny Black people rights, power, and humanity.

The University of North Carolina Press, 2026

The Cambridge History of African American Poetry edited by Keith D. Leonard

The Cambridge History of African American Poetry

ed. Keith Leonard

The Cambridge History of African American Poetry provides an authoritative chronicle of the unifying world-building practices of community and artistry of African American poets in the United States since the arrival of Africans on these shores. 

Cambridge University Press, 2026

Cisgender: Disorienting a Category by Perry Zurn

Cisgender: Disorienting a Category

Perry Zurn

Utilizing unplumbed archives and fresh interviews, Zurn offers a critical history of the term from the 1990s to the present, deftly defamiliarizing and reimagining cis at the same time. This unique examination of cisgender is a must-read for all readers invested in trans life and the futures of gender. 

Duke University Press, 2026

Indigenous DC by Elizabeth Rule

Indigenous DC: Native Peoples and the Nation's Capital

Elizabeth Rule

Indigenous DC shines a light upon the oft-overlooked contributions of tribal leaders and politicians, artists and activists to the rich history of the District of Columbia, and their imprint—at times memorialized in physical representations, and at other times living on only through oral history—upon this place. 

Georgetown University Press, 2023

Public-Facing Scholarship

Journal Editorships

Journal Articles

University Initiatives

  • Prof. Amanda Choutka is Faculty Fellow, Center for Leadership & Community engagement, supporting community-based learning and research with The Center for Leadership and Community Engagement and sharing her ethic of self-aware service: “doing better at doing good.”
  • Dr. Nabina Liebow is Director of CAS LEAD Program, a cohort based four-year certificate program designed to teach and empower students to become effective, ethical leaders who lead productively, with emotional-intelligence, and develop solutions that promote justice and equity. 
  • Neisha-Anne Green is Senior Director of AU Office of Academic Support and a scholar of writing centers whose work is grounded in the belief that language is fluid, intrinsically tied to our identities and influenced by culture, homeplace, discourse communities, and lived experiences. Her work on campus affirms that there are multiple ways of making meaning, affirms the power of bringing multiple Englishes or codes to the writing process, explores code-meshing and World Englishes, and challenges the idea of an all-powerful standard form of English.
  • Prof. Kimberly Ross is professorial lecturer in Writing Studies, scholar of Civil RIghts writing and rhetoric, and chair of its Writer as Witness committee, which selected and hosted the work of New York City-based writer Joseph Lee (Aquinnah Wampanoag) as the 2026–2027 first-year student community text. 
  • Dr. Keith Leonard is associate professor of writing, and Dr. Martyn Oliver is Faculty Chair of the AU Core. They co-designed the current AU Encounters program, which “examines key themes in U.S. society and beyond by exploring the works and legacy” of author James Baldwin.
  • Derrick Jefferson is an academic librarian and self-described “San Diego Hip Hop kid” who is also principal investigator on the ongoing “Chocolate City Speaks!” Humanities Truck/ARPC project, collecting oral histories from DC Hip Hop artists of the 1990s. 
  • Dr. Meg Bentley is Director of STEM Partnerships and Innovation and a professor in Biology. She is cofounder of AU’s “transdisciplinary initiative for STEM Education, Ethics, and Equity,” which prepares “diverse student populations for transferable 21st century academic and non-academic jobs in science and technology, as well as related fields in communications and policy.