News

VCU professor Gregory Smithers' new book, “The Water Carriers,” is a history of Indigenous stewardship of rivers and riparian ecosystems. (Contributed photo)

VCU historian’s new book navigates a pillar of Cherokee history: Water in southern Appalachia

Nov. 4, 2026

In ‘The Water Carriers,’ history professor Gregory D. Smithers explores an overlooked but enduring element of Indigenous culture.

Rethinking Who Shaped the American Revolution

Oct. 30, 2026

The American Revolution is often remembered as a fight for freedom, but whose freedom did it secure? Historian Kathleen DuVal’s lecture explored how Native nations shaped the Revolution through their own political decisions and alliances, even as the war’s outcome threatened the lands and sovereignty they fought to protect.

cRam Session: Richmond Haunts

Oct. 15, 2026

3 questions, 2 minutes, 1 lesson with Ryan Smith, who leads an exploration of the city’s ‘darker underside’ and is documenting its ghostlore.

Blakely Wright combines history and anthropology to better understand the past

Sept. 22, 2026

Wright focuses on marginalized and underrepresented Indigenous histories

The entrance to Auschwitz I. As an intern with the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, Michael Farfan worked in Block 24, the brick building directly to the left. (Photo by Michael Farfan)

Michael Farfan explores history in the heart of inhumanity at Auschwitz-Birkenau

Aug. 25, 2026

The VCU senior embraced his summer internship at the Holocaust memorial and museum in Poland.

Nearly 50 VCU faculty honored for their research and teaching

Aug. 20, 2026

The 2026 NIRA and PEIA awardees elevate VCU’s reputation and the student learning experience.

During a research internship with the St. John’s Church Foundation, Lena Nagle She examined historical records, vestry records and inscriptions on headstones and created educational content, including a presentation on the first Church Hill tunnel collapse of January 1873. (Dean Hoffmeyer, Enterprise Marketing and Communications)

Lena Nagle explores the grim and the grand of Richmond history

Aug. 20, 2026

The VCUarts senior, who embraces the city’s colorful past, spent a summer research internship delving into St. John’s Church.

A new minor in Native American and Indigenous studies reflects VCU’s growing spotlight on the centrality of Indigenous peoples, their contributions and their ongoing presence in America and Virginia. (File photo)

VCU offering new minor in Native American and Indigenous studies

Aug. 12, 2026

Debuting this fall in the College of Humanities and Sciences, the curriculum reflects growing ties to Virginia’s tribal nations.

In her new book, “Deprived of Sense and Intellect,” VCU professor Leigh Ann Craig asks both what medieval thinkers understood a mind to be — and what signified its loss. (Contributed photo)

What do the Middle Ages tell us about mental health then and now? VCU historian Leigh Ann Craig has answers

July 6, 2026

In her new book, ‘Deprived of Sense and Intellect,’ she examines sanity, demons, the complexity of medieval diagnostics and modern tie-ins.

St. John’s Church, which was built in 1741, is the oldest church in Richmond. (Getty Images)

Understanding the role of faith and religion in the founding of the United States

July 2, 2026

American independence took root amid religious diversity and differences, VCU history professor Ryan Smith says.