teigha mae vanhester
about.
Teigha Mae VanHester aka Dr. V (she/they) is a fierce intellectual; pleasure activist; joyful griot; SoCal native; proud Black Indigenous femme; proud Cancer; and assistant professor of Race, Gender and Sexuality studies at Butler University. VanHester’s community-based scholar-activist cultivates an understanding of sovereignty as a literacy, human right, and key component of survival. This work is mainly done through theorizing ecologies of Black Indigenous femme intellectual ancestry, cultural rhetoric, and antecedent knowledge creation, and grassroots activism. VanHester works to situate joy, rest, creativity, and pleasure as imperative strategies to liberation.. VanHester has presented at several conferences, including the Cultural Rhetoric Conference, the Conference for College Composition and Communication, Community Writing Conference, and the National Women’s Studies Association Conference. They have been a Coalition for Community Writing writer-in-residence and a recipient of the CCW’s Emerging Scholars Award, a recipient of the Conference on College Composition and Communication’s Scholars for the Dream Travel Award and a NAFSA RISE (Representation, Inclusion, Support, and Empowerment) Fellow, and an Indiana Humanities Wilma Gibbs Fellow. VanHester was the first Forum Editorial Fellow and has served as a peer reviewer for the journal Emerging Voices in Education. Their work has been featured in Race and Yoga; Rhetoric, Politics, and Culture; Community Literacy Journal and Women’s Studies Quarterly. In addition to scholastic work, VanHester loves cave and shipwreck diving, Beyonce, horror films, AEW wrestling, the Chicago Blackhawks, Texas BBQ, spades and visiting as many of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants as possible.
