January 2023
Through the Princeton Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism, & the Humanities, I'll be a Princeton-Mellon Fellow from Jan 23- Jan 24! I'll be teaching a course at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs in Fall 2023. https://arc-hum.princeton.edu/news/introducing-pmispia-fellow-melissa-valle
January 2023
My first article republication! It’s an honor to have “The Discursive Detachment of Race from Gentrification in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia” republished (+ new reflection & photo) in the brand new THE PLANETARY GENTRIFICATION READER by the incredible geographers, Drs. Loretta Lees, Tom Slater, and Elvin Wyly! https://www.routledge.com/The-Planetary-Gentrification-Reader/Lees-Slater-Wyly/p/book/9781032376547
September 2022
I am now the Mellon Assistant Professor of Global Racial Justice. I am a proud member of the 1st cohort of the Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice (ISGRJ) Named Term Chairs to support work in the areas of social justice and racial inequity at Rutgers University! https://globalracialjustice.rutgers.edu/Named-Term-Chairs-2022-2023?fbclid=IwAR36GLNJOJ_Zy-DwZ3rQsfwhRTtKFZ0-lFSXsKJ45JTCTsxyDoVD_hI4On4
January 2022
My article "Aping Blackness: Reading and Evaluating Racialized Images in Cartagena, Colombia" has been published in Sociology of Race and Ethnicity! https://doi.org/10.1177/23326492211057827
March 2021
My article "Globalizing the Sociology of Gentrification" has been published in City & Community! It’s part of a fantastic collection of articles for the special issue, "Global South.” https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/cico.12507
July 2020
Check out my latest piece, “Globalizing the Sociology of Gentrification,” published in the Early View online in City & Community! https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cico.12507
April 2020
February 2019
Check me out on the new podcast, Ratchet & Respectable, w/ Demetria L. Lucas! We started talking about White folks' obsession w/ #blackface but ended up rapping about all types of things Black, cultural & political! So thankful for the opportunity. We had a great time talkin' 'bout problematic ish! 😃
January 2019
Check out my latest piece, “Burlesquing Blackness: Racial significations in Carnival and the carnivalesque on #Colombia’s Caribbean Coast,” published in the Jan '19 edition of Public Culture!
November 2018
I moderated a discussion on Latinx colorism & racism at the Newark Public Library. Through performances by Cocotazo Media, these fantastic actors and writers provided great fodder for a lively discussion w/ community members about these pervasive yet taboo isms!
October 2018
Presenter, “A Battle of Worths: Symbolic boundaries, community conflict and notions of progress,” at the 25th Annual Critical Geography Conference at the Temple University Department of Geography and Urban Studies
October 1, 2019
Invited guest lecture, “Displacement, Dispossession and Black Diasporic Politics” at The Joseph A. Unanue Latino Institute at Seton Hall University. I rapped about multiethnic and transnational grassroots movements focused on anti-Black racism in Latin America and the United States, as well as the prospects for, and impediments to, building networks across physical and social boundaries!
July-August 2018
With fellow Rutgers University—Newark faculty, staff and graduate students attended the inaugural meeting of the U.S.-South Africa Higher Education Network and the Univ Staff Doctoral Programme (USDP) at the University of Pretoria in Johannesburg, South Africa 🇿🇦 and conducted project planning for the U.S.-South Africa Higher Education Network and the Univ Staff Doctoral Programme (USDP) at the University of the Western Cape in Capetown, South Africa.
June 2019
Invited to be on the plenary panel with an esteemed group of scholars to discuss the book Racism, the City, & the State by Michael Keith! The panel included Professors Michael Keith, Karim Murji, Ana Rita Alves, Mary Pattillo, and Abdoumalique Simone during the conference Racial Displacements: Peripheries, Camps, Resistance at the University of Birmingham in England.
June 2018
Our second Columbia Journalism Review piece about our Tow Center for Digital Journalism project on communities and media trust is published. This one discusses the results of the three workshops we convened in Philly with journalists, community leaders, and engaged journalism folks as a follow-up to our original research.
April 10-14, 2018
Presenter, “A Battle of Worths: Symbolic boundaries, community conflict and notions of progress.” Session: How Racism Takes Place: New Narratives of Race, Place and Geography, Session I. The American Association of Geographers 2018 Annual Meeting. New Orleans, Louisiana.
April 7, 2018
Presenter, Panel: “Building Movements in Fractured Times.” 22nd Annual Students and Alumni of Color (SAOC) Symposium at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University.
March 22-24, 2018
Presenter, “Festive Fictions: A Photo-Elicitation Study of Blackness, Ritual and Recognition in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia.” Panel: Hidden in Plain Site: Race, Space and the Memorialization of Black Bodies. Black Portraiture[S] IV: THE COLOR OF SILENCE. The W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute at the Hutchins Center, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
March 3, 2018
Was invited to discuss Latinxs and media representation for a segment on FuseTv. https://www.fuse.tv/videos/2018/03/oscars-2018-latinx-representation-oscars-so-white-man-on-the-street
November 1, 2017
Presenter, “A Battle of Worths: Symbolic boundaries, community conflict and notions of progress.” Division of Global Affairs (DGA) Colloquium. Rutgers University-Newark. Newark, New Jersey.
October 6, 2017
Presented my paper, A Battle of Worths: Symbolic boundaries, community conflict and notions of progress, at the Rutgers' 2017 National Academic Conference, Framing the Value of Diversity and Inclusion in Higher Education.
October 3, 2017
My essay, Revealing the Ruse: Shifting the narrative of colorblind urbanism, goes online for the International Journal of Urban & Regional Research's Spotlight on Race, Justice, and the City.
September 2016
Began position as an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Sociology & Anthropology and African-American & African Studies at Rutgers University-Newark. Also serving as a core member of the Global Urban Studies program.
August 14, 2017
Presented my paper, A Battle of Worths: Symbolic boundaries, community conflict and notions of progress, at the 112th American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, "Culture, Inequalities, and Social Inclusion Across the Globe," in Montréal, Québec, Canada.
May 2017
Was asked to do a little something for the launch of On She Goes, to support their mission to help women of color travel all over the world. Check out my podcast episode here: https://soundcloud.com/onshegoes
May 29-June 5, 2017
As part of a delegation of Rutgers University-Newark, faculty, students and staff, met with various administrators, scholars and programs persons at the University of Pretoria, Cornerstone Institute, and Community Chest in Pretoria and Cape Town, South Africa, to discuss future research, programmatic and community-based partnerships.
May 28, 2017
Gave talk on #BlackLivesMatter, the Movement for Black Lives, at B-Fest in Athens, Greece.
January 24, 2017
Published first my article in a major academic journal. The discursive detachment of race from gentrification in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia in Ethnic and Racial Studies.
October 6-8, 2016
Presented the paper, (Mis) Recognition: Race, representation and ritual in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, at the 46th Annual Association for Black Sociologists Conference, "Black Sociology Matters!" in Memphis, Tennessee.
September 2016
Began as Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of African-American and African Studies at Rutgers University-Newark.
July 2016
DEFENDED DISSERTATION!!!!!!!!!
August 16-Sept. 1, 2015
Presented my work on race and gentrification at the Research Committee 21 (RC21) Conference on Sociology of Urban and Regional Development of the International Sociological Association and participated in the Summer School on Comparative Urban Studies, both in Urbino, Italy.
July 25-30, 2015
Presented a paper at the International Conference of Critical Geography (ICCG) in Ramallah, Palestine. It was one of the most amazing conferences I've ever had the honor of participating.
April 13, 2015
My article on stigma and Afro-descendant migrants in Chile is published in English and Spanish in Revista de Trabajo Social de la Escuela de Trabajo Social de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. https://columbia.academia.edu/melissavalle
March 1, 2015
Moderated the discussion, "Race Matters: A Multicultural Perspective on the Social Construct of Race" for the Center for Ethnic, Racial, and Religious Understanding (CERRU) at Queens College in Flushing, NY, Monday, March 2, 2015, from 5:30-8pm.
February 26, 2015
Presented at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society, Friday, February 27 at 8:30am (yeh, that's the real time).
February 1, 2015
Received 1 of the 16 Antipode Conference Fee Waiver Grants for the International Conference of Critical Geography (ICCG) in Palestine this July!! Yay!! I support the political statement!
January 28, 2015
Dropped my 1st magazine piece on anti-Black racism in Chile! "Racismo en Chile ¡Morena, morena,rica, qué rica!"