Vox Humanities

About Vox Humanities

Vox Humanities is a podcast from the Center for Humanities at Virginia Tech. Our focus is on the advancement of human centered knowledge, pursued in conversation with experts whose work enhances public understanding of a complex world to which humanistic inquiry has never been more important. Throughout this series, we return to the theme of "Tech for Humanity," a university-wide initiative guiding research, curriculum, and engagement across many disciplines at Virginia Tech. The host, Sylvester Johnson, is the director of the Center for Humanities and leads the Tech for Humanity initiative.

Publisher

Virginia Tech Center for Humanities

Category

education

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

3 May 2021

Latest episode

23 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

16 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   23 Sept 2026

   Mauro Caraccioli on Interlingual Relations

   In this episode, Corinne Noirot speaks with Mauro Caraccioli about his recent book, Interlingual Relations: Global Politics in a Polyglot World (University of Michigan Press, 2026) (https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpress.umich.edu%2FBooks%2FI%2FInterlingual-Relations3&data=05%7C02%7Cpsalmons%40vt.edu%7C33873eeb2b00488b179908ded2048f5a%7C6095688410ad40fa863d4f32c1e3a37a%7C0%7C0%7C639179114369705035%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=8WEBEJ8tiVE5tr7WyK9HYIZ3oYM3WZfq%2Fp7wtHS9GaU%3D&reserved=0). The book is a volume of essays Mauro co-edited with Einar Wigen (University of Oslo). The chapters engage questions of language and translation in global politics, advancing a new research agenda for the study of translation in International Relations and demonstrating how linguistic mediation shapes political life across local, national, and international contexts. Mauro José Caraccioli is Associate Professor of Modern Political Theory and Director of International Studies in the Department of Political Science at Virginia Tech. Caraccioli is the author of Writing the New World: The Politics of Natural History in the Early Spanish Empire (University of Florida Press, 2021) (https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffloridapress.org%2F9781683401681%2Fwriting-the-new-world%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cpsalmons%40vt.edu%7C33873eeb2b00488b179908ded2048f5a%7C6095688410ad40fa863d4f32c1e3a37a%7C0%7C0%7C639179114369625631%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=nsNLUYC%2Fv4Ch7Yc2QqOqMDwMRe1s7HuDY%2Bzd2TCeUCQ%3D&reserved=0), which in 2023 received the Best Book Award from the Theory Section of the International Studies Association. Your host for this episode, Corinne Noirot is a professor of French in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures, Virginia Tech.

2. 

   9 Sept 2026

   Season Two Preview

   After an extended break, Paul Quigley, Director of the Center for Humanities (https://liberalarts.vt.edu/research-centers/center-for-humanities.html) at Virginia Tech, introduces the new season of Vox Humanities. With hosts Corinne Noirot and Sweta Baniya, and producer Joe Forte, Paul speaks about the decision to bring back the podcast, his hopes for what it may accomplish, and the reasons behind a key change in format. Beginning next week, the new season will drop episodes monthly during academic semesters.

3. 

   17 Feb 2026

   Edward Polanco

   Sylvester Johnson talks with Edward Polanco about ancestry, the Nahua peoples, ancient healing techniques, Gender, and settler colonialism. Dr. Edward Polanco is a Kuskatanchanej – a person from Kuskatan (Western and Central El Salvador) – scholar of Mesoamerica. Although he was born in Los Angeles, CA, his ancestors are from Kuskatan and his parents fled their homeland due to political violence and instability. Dr. Polanco is committed to amplifying and centering Indigenous voices and perspectives in his research, his classroom, and on Virginia Tech’s campus. To achieve this, he works closely with the Latinx and Native communities on campus, and more broadly in the US and Latin America. Dr. Polanco is on leave in the Fall of 2023. His first book, Healing Like Our Ancestors: The Nahua Tiçitl, Gender, and Settler Colonialism in Central Mexico; 1535-1660 (University of Arizona Press; in press, expected August 2024) examines healing ceremonial specialists among 16th and 17th-century Nahua people (Indigenous groups with diverse communities in Mexico and El Salvador) in Central Mexico. Dr. Polanco carefully analyzes the different healing tasks women and men had in their communities, he also unpacks the importance of women as titiçih (healing specialists), and he unearths how Spanish authorities attacked Native healers as they attempted to evangelize and hispanize Indigenous populations in New Spain (today known as Mexico and Central America). He has published on Indigenous healing knowledge, and gendered understandings of the human body. Various fellowships and institutions have funded Dr. Polanco’s work, including the Fulbright-García Robles research grant, FLAS summer and AY fellowships, and a Newberry Library National Endowment for the Humanities Long-Term Fellowship. For more information and updates, please visit Professor Polanco's personal website. Dr. Polanco’s teaching interests include Native history, Latin America, Mexico, El Salvador, Mesoamerica, sorcery, race, gender, and class. He has introduced various new courses to Virginia Tech that challenge students to think about the past from Indigenous perspectives.

4. 

   18 Sept 2023

   Premesh Lalu

   Professor Premesh Lalu is a distinguished scholar of the humanities and the Director of the Centre for Humanities Research at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. With decades of experience in the field, Professor Lalu is widely recognized as a leading voice in the study of African intellectual and cultural history. His research focuses on the intersections of race, politics, and identity in South Africa and the broader African continent, with a particular emphasis on the role of the humanities in shaping our understanding of these complex issues. We recorded our conversation with Professor Lalu in March of 2023.

5. 

   12 Jul 2023

   Philip Butler

   Philip Butler is an Assistant Professor of Theology and Posthuman Artificial Intelligence Systems at Iliff School of Theology. He is the founder of the Seekr Project, a distinctly Black conversational artificial intelligence with mental health capacities. His work primarily focuses on the intersection of neuroscience, technology, spirituality and race. He is the author of Critical Black Futures (2021) and Black Transhuman Liberation Theology: Spirituality and Technology (2019).

6. 

   5 Jun 2023

   Tom Ewing

   For this episode, we spoke with Dr. Tom Ewing, Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research in Virginia Tech’s College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. He is an expert in Russian history, data and society, and modern medical history. Among his publications are: The Teachers of Stalinism, Education & the Great Depression, Separate Schools: Gender, Policy, and Practice in the Postwar Soviet Union. He has also co-edited, Viral Networks: Connecting Digital Humanities and Medical History, which was published by Virginia Tech Publishing in 2018. His current research project explores the transmission of information about the co-called “Russian Influenza” (1889-1890) using data and digital humanities approaches to medical history. Professor Ewing also coordinates the Data in Social Context program, which sustains an interdisciplinary approach of data analytics, computational skills, and critical thinking in the humanities and social sciences. He has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities to run workshops on the 1918 Spanish Influenza and on Images and Texts in Medical History. We spoke with Professor Tom Ewing in the spring of 2022.

7. 

   15 Apr 2022

   Mxolisi Mavi

   In January 2022, Sylvester Johnson spoke with Dr. Mxolisi Victor Mavi, a veteran activist of South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement and expert in the study of theology, race, politics, and global liberation movements. Dr. Mavi is a collaborator with the “Future Humans, Human Futures” project on religion, technology, and ethics that has been generously supported by the Henry Luce Foundation. They discussed Dr. Mavi’s advocacy for social justice in South Africa during both the period of formal racial apartheid and more recently under the system of multi-racial democracy that has been shaped by drastic inequality. Their conversation explores the global dimensions of economic change that technology innovation and the “digital divide” have created as major challenges that must be addressed to shape a more equitable future for the twenty-first century.

8. 

   8 Apr 2022

   The New River

   In December 2021, Sylvester Johnson spoke with Ed Falco and Amanda Hodes about the creation and development of New River, a journal of digital writing and art currently housed at Virginia Tech. Ed Falco founded the journal in collaboration with Len Hatfield in 1996 and describes the origins of the journal within the context of emerging digital humanities technologies. Amanda Hodes, who served as outreach coordinator at the time of this recording, explains the various ways the journal has positively shaped writing, art, and creativity since its founding.

9. 

   1 Apr 2022

   Laura Belmonte and Shaila Mehra

   During June of 2021, Sylvester Johnson spoke with Laura Belmonte, Dean of Virginia Tech’s College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences about her book The International LGBT Rights Movement: A History (2020). They were joined by Shaila Mehra, the college’s Assistant Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion who is a scholar of Black feminist theory. Belmonte, whose research examines international relations, gender and sexuality, and global politics, discusses the impetus for her research and the significance of a global approach to understanding the struggle for LGBTQ rights.

10. 

    16 Feb 2022

    John Lardas Modern

    Professor John Modern, a scholar of religion and secularism, has written Neuromatic, an interdisciplinary study of religion and the brain that explores how religion and brain science have influenced each other as humans have sought to understand cognition, reality, and human identity. Professor Modern spoke with Sylvester Johnson for this episode in 2021, shortly before the book's release. They discussed some of the book's key insights and the broader implications for understanding the possibilities and limitations of religious and scientific efforts to understand humanity.

11. 

    8 Nov 2021

    Matthew Salesses & Silas Cassinelli

    Matthew Salesses is the author of the bestsellers The Hundred-Year Flood (http://goo.gl/gKKeDs), an Adoptive Families Best Book of 2015 and a Best Book of the season at Buzzfeed, Refinery29, and Gawker, among others, and Craft in the Real World (https://www.amazon.com/Craft-Real-World-Rethinking-Workshopping/dp/1948226804/), an Esquire Best Book of the 2021, which explores alternative models of craft and the writing workshop, especially for marginalized writers. His latest novel is the PEN/Faulkner Finalist Disappear Doppelgänger Disappear (https://www.amazon.com/Disappear-Doppelg%C3%A4nger-Novel-Matthew-Salesses/dp/1503943267/ref=pd_sbs_14_1/134-0034838-6825152?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1503943267&pd_rd_r=e4025f0e-8998-42b9-84d6-bb0f6779ab12&pd_rd_w=gPc7I&pd_rd_wg=mZkLv&pf_rd_p=0b2db3d1-33eb-418a-9672-bb9bd54808e8&pf_rd_r=K5BBX391N2B6XWKA09D7&psc=1&refRID=K5BBX391N2B6XWKA09D7), a Thrillist.com Best Book of 2020. Silas Cassinelli is an assistant professor in the Department of English. He teaches classes in Asian American studies, Ethnic American literatures, and gender and women’s studies. His research focuses on the Korean diaspora, transnational adoption studies, and queer kinship. Both joined host Sylvester Johnson in a small panel discussion about their race, culture, literature and their shared experience as trans-national Korean-American adoptees.

12. 

    1 Nov 2021

    Lucinda Roy

    Novelist, poet, and memoirist Lucinda Roy (https://lucindaroy.com/)’s latest book is the speculative novel THE FREEDOM RACE (Tor/Macmillan), Volume I of THE DREAMBIRD CHRONICLES trilogy. Among her previous books are the memoir NO RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT: What We’ve Learned from the Tragedy at Virginia Tech, the novel LADY MOSES (a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection) and the poetry collection THE HUMMING BIRDS, winner of the Eighth Mountain Poetry Prize. A Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech, she gives keynotes and presentations around the country on creative writing, race and racism, diversity, and campus safety. Her commentaries and poetry have been published in numerous newspapers and journals, including USA Today, the Guardian, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and the New York Times. Her passions include writing, teaching, oil painting, and (when all else fails) laughing till it hurts. Lucinda Roy joined Sylvester Johnson in October of 2021 to discuss her writing, her art, the power of stories, and the way in which imagination can be an antidote to despair.

13. 

    22 Sept 2021

    Aaron Brantly & The Tech4Humanity Lab

    In this episode, Sylvester Johnson speaks with Aaron F. Brantly, an assistant professor of political science at Virginia Tech about his leadership of the Tech4Humanity Lab (https://tech4humanitylab.org/) at Virginia Tech. A centerpiece of the Tech4 Humanity initiative, the lab is a trans-disciplinary space for focusing on the impact of technology on the human condition. Dr. Brantly has worked on issues related to cybersecurity from multiple angles, including human rights and development, intelligence and national security, and military cybersecurity. His interests span the political science and computer science divide. The interview was recorded in November of 2020.

14. 

    22 Jul 2021

    Geraldine Heng and Matthew Gabriele

    Sylvester Johnson hosts a small round table discussion on race in the European Middle Ages with Geraldine Heng and Matthew Gabriele. Geraldine Heng is Professor of English and Comparative Literature, with a joint appointment in Middle Eastern studies and Women’s studies. She holds the Perceval Professorship, created by anonymous donors to support her career. She is also Founder and Director of the Global Middle Ages Projects (G-MAP): www.globalmiddleages.org (http://www.globalmiddleages.org/) Her first book, Empire of Magic: Medieval Romance and the Politics of Cultural Fantasy (Columbia University Press, 2003, 2004, 2012; 533 pp.) traces the development of a medieval literary genre—European romance, and, in particular, the King Arthur legend—in response to the traumas of the crusades and crusading history, and Europe’s myriad encounters with the East. Heng’s second book, The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages (Cambridge University press, 2018; 504 pp. in a larger, 10 x 7 format) argues that the medieval period was not a pre-political, pre-racial era, and that religion then (and now)—as much as science, in the high-modern era of “scientific racism”—was selectively deployed to identify differences among humans that were essentialized as absolute and fundamental, so as to distribute positions and powers differentially to human groups, in practices that we would today call acts of race. Invention of Race won the 2019 PROSE prize in Global History, and was listed among History Today's best books of 2018. Matthew Gabriele is a professor of medieval studies and the chair of the Department of Religion and Culture (https://liberalarts.vt.edu/departments-and-schools/department-of-religion-and-culture.html) at Virginia Tech. He has published numerous academic articles and several books, including An Empire of Memory: The Legend of Charlemagne, the Franks, and Jerusalem before the First Crusade, which received the Southeastern Medieval Association’s Best First Book in 2013. Dr. Gabriele is a regular contributor to Forbes.com; his public writing has appeared in such places as The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Daily Beast, Slate, and The Roanoke Times; and interviews with him have aired locally, nationally, and internationally.

15. 

    30 May 2021

    E. Patrick Johnson

    In the summer of 2020, Sylvester Johnson spoke with E. Patrick Johnson about his award-winning film Making Sweet Tea. E. Patrick Johnson is the Dean of the School of Communication at Northwestern University, where he holds the Carlos Montezuma chair as Professor of Performance Studies and African American Studies. He is a scholar and an artist who performs nationally and internationally and has published widely in the areas of race, gender, sexuality and performance. Johnson is a prolific performer and scholar, and an inspiring teacher, whose research and artistry has greatly impacted African American studies, Performance studies, and Gender and Sexuality studies. He has written two award-winning books, Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity (Duke UP, 2003), which won the Lilla A. Heston Award, the Errol Hill Book Award, and was a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South—An Oral History (University of North Carolina UP, 2008), which was recognized as a Stonewall Book Award Honor Book by the LGBT Round Table of the American Library Association. He co-edited (with Mae G. Henderson) Black Queer Studies—A Critical Anthology (Duke UP, 2005). He is also the editor of Cultural Struggles: Performance, Ethnography, Praxis by Dwight Conquergood (Michigan UP, 2013) and co-editor (with Ramón Rivera-Servera) of solo/black/woman: scripts, interviews, and essays (Northwestern UP, 2013). Johnson edited No Tea, No Shade: New Writings in Black Queer Studies (Duke UP, 2016) and he also co-edited Blacktino Queer Performance (with Ramón Rivera-Servera (Duke UP, 2016). He recently published the creative nonfiction text titled Honeypot: Black Southern Women Who Love Women. He is also writing a companion volume (?) Black. Queer. Southern. Women. — An Oral History.

16. 

    3 May 2021

    Tech for Humanity: The T.E.A.R. Mask

    In late 2020, Sylvester Johnson sat down with Alex Munro, Claudia Hasenfang, and Cole Powell, three members of the award winning design team of Virginia Tech students and recent alumni. The team is responsible for the creation of the T.E.A.R. Mask, a prototype pocket-sized anti-tear gas respirator that protects the eyes, nose, and mouth from the harmful effects of tear gas. Its design is compact enough fit in a pocket or purse, and incorporates a simple operation of use that can be deployed quickly and safely. As the designers highlight, the T.E.A.R. Mask exemplifies the human centered technological design practices that animate the university's Tech for Humanity initiative.

Contact Vox Humanities

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.