Announcing a new director for KU’s Hall Center for the Humanities

From: Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research
Sent: Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024, 8:45 a.m.
To: KU Lawrence/Edwards faculty & staff

Dear Faculty & Staff,

I am pleased to announce that Giselle Anatol, professor of English, has been named director of the Hall Center for the Humanities, effective March 3. She has led the center in an interim capacity since former director Richard Godbeer retired in August 2022.  

I am grateful for Dr. Anatol’s leadership and vision for the Hall Center, which provides a unique and interdisciplinary home for scholars and students to engage in creative endeavors and public discourse. KU has long-standing strength in humanities research, and Dr. Anatol is committed to expanding the center’s impact.

Under her interim direction, the Hall Center:

  • Revived the Haunting Humanities festival, a public outreach event that encourages humanities scholars to practice articulating their research in fun and accessible ways for a wider audience.
     
  • Resumed the Undergraduate Fellows Program, fostering greater undergraduate participation in the Hall Center’s scholarly activities and extending the reach of the thought-provoking conversations that occur during the center’s various programs.
     
  • Facilitated a small-scale version of the original Wheat State Whirlwind Tour, taking two dozen faculty and staff on a two-day visit to the Kansas communities of Lucas, Wilson and Nicodemus to explore different parts of the state, learn about each other’s lives and work, and engage with residents in rural communities.

Dr. Anatol joined KU in 1998. Her research interests include Caribbean literature and folklore, U.S. African American literature, speculative fiction by authors of the African diaspora, and representations of race, ethnicity and gender in writing for youth. She has authored “The Things That Fly in the Night: Female Vampires in Literature of the Circum-Caribbean and African Diaspora,” a book published in 2015 by Rutgers University Press, and a number of book chapters and peer-reviewed journal articles. She has also fostered scholarly collaboration by editing three collections of essays on children’s and young adult literature. Her most recent publication, “Small-Girl Toni and the Quest for Gold,” is a children’s book inspired by acclaimed African American author Toni Morrison.

Dr. Anatol has been recognized repeatedly for teaching and research excellence at KU, receiving the Louise Byrd Graduate Educator Award, the Frances L. Stiefel Teaching Professorship in English, the Ned Fleming Award for Excellence in Teaching, a Conger-Gabel Teaching Professorship, and the English graduate student organization’s Mabel S. Fry Teaching Award in 2011 and in 2022. She was named one of KU’s Women of Distinction in 2013 and was selected for the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Scholar-in-Residence fellowship program in 2012.

I extend my sincere thanks to the search committee — co-chaired by Verónica Garibotto, professor of Spanish & Portuguese, and Ben Eggleston, associate dean in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences and professor of philosophy — for their outstanding work. I am also grateful to each of you who engaged in the search process and provided feedback.

Respectfully,
Belinda

Belinda Sturm
Interim Vice Chancellor for Research