Graduate Instructors
Rhonda Chollock
Where are you from? "Dubois, PA."
What is the topic of your dissertation? "My dissertation centers on two English and two Spanish women whose 17th century writings focused on the New World as a space where one could recreate herself."
What are your post-doc career interests? "Ideally, to teach at a small liberal arts college."
What has been your favorite course to T.A. or teach in the department? "A course I designed on radio in 21st century America."
Random fact: "I am a DJ and board member at 91.9 WNRN."
Matthew Hughey
Where are you from? "I am originally from Los Angeles, CA, but I was raised primarily in North Carolina. I have also lived in Jamaica, Ohio, and now in Virginia."
What is the topic of your dissertation? "Comparing and contrasting the contemporary white racist and white antiracist movement."
What are your post-doc career interests? "I have always wanted to use education to change the world. This may seem like a bold and some may even say nave claim, but this sentiment has been my primary inspiration in shaping my desire to develop innovative scholarly and pedagogical tools from traditionally marginalized sources. Unfortunately, it is too common for graduate schools to instruct us to teach within strikingly similar institutions that helped to form us, thereby installing a social stasis that serves as an impediment to change. Therefore, my career goals are to teach, research, and publish in an institution of higher learning, whether that is the setting of a Historically Black College or University, an Ivy League, a teaching-oriented institution, or a public "research-one." If I do not go into the academic sector, I would be interested in pursuing a position akin to the work of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights."
What has been your favorite course to T.A. or teach in the department? "I like Race in the Media because of the subject matter, but more so because of wide variety of students and their interests that make the course a wonderful experience."
Any advice for undergrads considering graduate school? "Study something to make others, not yourself, better - you'll end up accomplishing both."
Random fact: "I have two pet sharks."
Robert Jackson
Robert Jackson is a Ph.D. candidate in the History department. His work broadly includes American cultural studies since the Civil War, and he is particularly interested in film, literature, and history, and the entanglements among these three areas. He is currently working on "Fade In, Crossroads," a book about southern and African American filmmaking from the early silent era to World War II. Previous and continuing areas of interest are American literary regionalism; major figures like William Faulkner, Saul Bellow, Thomas Pynchon, and Toni Morrison; environmental literature; and history, urban studies, civil rights and global human rights movements; visual culture theory; documentary studies; cultural memory; blues and jazz cultures; film noir; genre theory; and baseball. "If not for this career, I'd probably make my living as a guitarist, soccer coach, environmentalist, or filmmaker--or some combination of these; and I suppose I probably will anyway, along with teaching and writing my books," says Jackson.
What are your post-doc career interests? "Before I arrived at the history department here at UVA, I studied at the University of Chicago, Loyola Marymount University, and New York University. I taught for a while at an historically black college in the Deep South, and one of these days, after I complete my dissertation, I'll go back to full-time teaching."
What has been your favorite course to T.A. or teach in the department? "In Spring 2005 I taught a course in Media Studies called "Jim Crow and American Cinema," which dealt with the influence of segregation on the development of the American film industry. That was a pretty cool course, spanning from DW Griffith's early one-reel Civil War films to recent work by such figures as Spike Lee and Julie Dash, and touching on topics like minstrelsy, migration, sexuality, labor, consumerism, and media itself. I like to design interdisciplinary courses that push distinct fields into conversation with each other, and my work in Media Studies provided a great opportunity to bring them together in a single divine milieu."
Any advice for undergrads considering graduate school (in one sentence)? "My advice to those thinking about graduate school is simple: make sure you really love your work."
Random fact: "I once dated a Solid Gold dancer."
