Dr. Andrea Simpson
Associate Professor of Political Science Professor Simpson is a native of Memphis, Tennessee. After graduating from Rhodes College in 1976, she pursued a career in advertising, marketing and public relations before entering graduate school at the University of Virginia in 1987. In 1989, she began the doctoral program in political science at Emory University, and in 1993 began her career as a professor at the University of Washington. Her first book, The Tie that Binds, was named the “Best Book of 1998 on Racial Identity” by the Race, Ethnicity, and Politics section of the American Political Science Association. As a professor at the University of Washington, Simpson served as chair of several doctoral dissertation committees and as a member of many. Professor Simpson is now an associate professor at the University of Richmond. She has published numerous book chapters and served as the first black woman program chair and president of the Western Political Science Association. Simpson is currently completing a book on the environmental justice movement to be published by Oxford University Press.
202-P Weinstein Hall
Office: (804) 289-8739
Fax: (804) 287-6833
http://www.richmond.edu/~asimpson
Teaching:
Race and Ethnicity
Gender
Politics and Criminal Justice
Introduction to American Politics (undergrad.)
African-American Politics and Social Thought (undergrad.)
The Politics of Race in the United States (undergrad.)
Critical Race Theory (undergrad.)
Women in Politics (undergrad.)
Money, Politics, and Prisons (undergrad.)
Women and Social Movements (undergrad.)
Research:
Gender
Political Communication
Education:
Ph.D. in Political Science, Emory University
M.A. in Public Administration, University of Virginia
Selected Publications:
Critial Confederacy Studies: An interdiscipilnary research project supporrted by the Weinstein Family Fellowship
Books
The Tie that Binds: Identity and Political Attitudes in the Post-Civil Rights Generation. New York: New York University Press, 1998.
Articles
“Majority Spaces and Black Folks’ Places: Institutional Responses to Racism and the Role of the Ombuds.” The Journal , California Caucus of College and University Ombuds. November 1999, 2:1, 43-53.
Book Chapters
“Going It Alone: Black Women Activists and Black Organizational Quiescence” in The State of the Discipline: An African-American Perspective, Temple University Press, 2007.
“Halting, Heroic, Hopeful: Today and Tomorrow in the Environmental Justice Movement” in Environmental Injustices, Political Struggles, edited by David E. Camacho, forthcoming from Durham: Duke University Press.
“Who Hears Their Cry? The Fight for Environmental Justice in Memphis, Tennessee” in The Environmental Justice Reader: Politics, Poetics, and Pedagogy, edited by Joni Adamson, Mei Mei Evans, Kamala Platt, and Rachel Stein, Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2001.
Book Reviews
Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age, by Larry Bartels, (Princeton, Princeton University Press; New York, Sage Foundation Press), 2008, forthcoming in the American Review of Politics, Spring, Summer 2009.
Black Multiracial Politics, edited by Yvette Alex-Assensoh and Lawrence J. Hanks, (New York University Press), 2000, National Political Science Review 10: p.217.
Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril Among the Black Middle Class, by Mary Pattillo-McCoy, Urban Affairs Quarterly, 36:5, 734.
Shadowboxing, by Joy James, Signs 27:4.
Academic and Professional Activities:
Respondent, Plenary Session, “The State of Intersectionality Research,” for the Intersectionality Short Course: Preliminary Programme APSA 2008 Boston
Chair, Panel on “Understanding Politics and Political Participation at the Intersectionality of Race and Gender”, 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association
Presenter, Poster Session on Weinstein Family Fellows Seminar, “The Politics of Race, Space, and Place”, along with University of Richmond student Rasa Verseckaite, at the 2007 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association
Discussant, Panel on “Intersectionality and Contemporary Politics: Gender, Generation and Race” at the 2006 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association
Discussant, Woodrow Wilson Fellows Program, 2005. Response to Reuel Roger’s work, Black Ethnic Options: Afro-Caribbean Immigrants and the Politics of Incorporation, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2005. Rogers is an Associate Professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
Participant, Roundtable on the Perestroika Movement in Political Science, Western Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Portland, Oregon, March, 2004.
Chair and Participant, Roundtable on Professional Development, 2001 Annual Meeting of the Western Political Science Association, Long Beach, California.
Participant, Roundtable on “Engaging Multiple Publics: Environmental Justice Politics, Poetics, Pedagogy, and Activism,” Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association, November 2001.
Chair and Discussant, Roundtable on Race in Comparative Perspective: Discussions on the 1999 Ralph J. Bunche Award-Winning Books on Ethnic and Cultural Pluralism at 2000 Annual Political Science Association Meeting, Washington, D.C.
Chair, panel on Race, Racism and the Media, the 1999 Annual Meeting of the Western Political Science Association, Seattle, Washington.
Chair and Discussant, panel on Black Participation and Representation, the 1998 Annual Meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, Atlanta, Georgia.
Presentations:
“Who Hears Their Cry? African-American Women in the Environmental Justice Movement,” presented at Ecological Conversations: Gender, Science, and the Sacred, a conference sponsored by the University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, May 2002.
“Intersectionality and Grassroots Activism in the Environmental Justice Movement,” Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, March 2002.
“Spectres and Shadows: Media Images of African-American Women in Politics,” presented at the Center for Women and Democracy workshop on Women, Elections, and Public Office in Washington State and Beyond, University of Washington, April 14, 2000.
“The Sapphire Syndrome: Media Images of African-American Women in Politics,” presented at Emory University, Department of Political Science, March 31, 2000.
“Taking Over or Taking a Back Seat? African-American Women and Political Participation,” presented as part of the Benjamin Hooks Lecture Series, Marcus W. Orr Center for the Humanities and the Benjamin Hooks Research Institute, University of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee, March 3, 2000.
Awards:
Best Paper on Blacks and Politics, 2007, Western Political Science Association, for Intersectionality Leadership, and the Environmental Justice Movement, presented at the Annual Meeting of the WPSA in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Best Paper of 2002, American Political Science Association, Section on Ecological and Transformational Politics, presented at the Annual Meeting of the APSA in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Recipient of “Best Book on Racial Identity" award from the Race and Ethnicity Section of the American Political Science Association, presented at the Annual Meeting of the APSA in Atlanta, Georgia, September 1999 for The Tie that Binds, New York University Press, 1998.
Departmental Nominee, Distinguished Teacher Award, University of Washington, Spring, 2000
1998 Professor of the Year, Alpha Phi Sorority, University of Washington
Grants and Fellowships
Recipient, Community Based Learning Fellowship, University of Richmond, 2009-2010.
Recipient, Teagle Fellowship, University of Richmond, 2007. This fellowship allows professors to revise and renew syllabi in ways that connect the material to larger issues of meaning such an individual’s relationship to and responsibility for other human beings. A summer seminar, entitled “The Pedagogy of Belief and Doubt” facilitated a collaborative effort with professors throughout the state in this process.
Recipient, Weinstein Fellows Program, 2007-2008. This award is in collaboration with Professors Paul Achter and Kevin Kuswa of the Rhetoric and Communications Department at the University of Richmond. The title of this project is “The Politics of Race, Space, and Place, Part II, Critical Confederacy Studies,” and includes a seminar to be taught in the spring of 2008.
Recipient, Weinstein Fellows Program, 2005-2006. This award was in collaboration with Professors Kevin Kuswa and Paul Achter of the Rhetoric and Communications Department at the University of Richmond for a research project completed in partnership with undergraduates entitled “The Politics of Race, Space, and Place.”
Recipient, Curriculum Transformation Project Grant for “Multiple Identities and Political Activism: A Series on the Role of Women in Social Justice Movements,” a proposed series of courses designed for the Law, Societies, and Justice Program of the Department of Political Science, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Washington, 2003.
Rockefeller Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Memphis, Center for Research on Women, 2001-2002
University of California, Berkeley Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program for Academic Diversity, 1996-97
Institute for Ethnic Studies in the United States Research Grant, 1995
Boeing Endowment for Excellence Award, 1993, 1994
The Carolina Minority Postdoctoral Scholars Fellowship, 1993, declined
Ted Robinson Memorial Award, Southwestern Political Science Association, 1993
National Science Foundation Minority Travel Grant, 1992
Marsha Mashaw Award in Public Administration, University of Virginia, 1990
Bradley Foundation Fellowship, University of Virginia, 1988-89
Commonwealth Graduate Fellowship Program Recipient, Council of Higher Education, Commonwealth of Virginia, 1988-89