Rate My Professor Gregory Smithers

Gregory Smithers, Ph.D., is a Professor of American History in the Department of History at Virginia Commonwealth University. He holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Davis, and a B.A. with First Class Honours from the Australian Catholic University. Prior to his current position, Smithers has taught at universities in California, Hawaii, Scotland, and Ohio. Recently, he held a British Academy Global Professorship based at the University of Birmingham in England. His research and teaching focus on the histories of Indigenous peoples and African Americans from the eighteenth century to the present, with particular interest in Cherokee history, Indigenous history from the Mountain South to California and the Southwest Pacific, environmental history, comparative history, and the history of race, gender, and sexuality. He is currently working on a history of waterways in Cherokee history funded by the British Academy, which includes an interactive website entitled Cherokee Riverkeepers.

Smithers has authored numerous books that have shaped scholarship in Native American and African American history. His publications include Reclaiming Two-Spirits: Sexuality, Spiritual Renewal & Sovereignty in Native America (Beacon Press, 2022), Native Southerners: Indigenous History from Origins to Removal (University of Oklahoma Press, 2019), Science, Sexuality, and Race in the United States and Australia, 1780-1940, revised second edition (University of Nebraska Press, 2017), The Cherokee Diaspora: An Indigenous History of Migration, Resettlement, and Identity (Yale University Press, 2015), co-authored Racism in American Popular Media: From Aunt Jemima to the Frito Bandito (Praeger Press, 2015), and Slave Breeding: Sex, Violence & Memory in African American History (University Press of Florida, 2012). His work has garnered significant recognition, including the Independent Publishers Book Award in Multicultural Non-Fiction (2017) for The Cherokee Diaspora, Historical Book Award from the North Carolina Society of Historians (2016), Award of Excellence from the East Tennessee Historical Society (2016), British Academy Global Professorship (2019), Virginia Humanities Fellow (2019), Wills Research Fellow from the Tennessee Historical Society (2018), and Visiting U.S. Fellow at the Eccles Centre for American Studies, British Library (2015). Smithers' scholarship connects historical narratives to contemporary issues of social justice, environmental sustainability, racial equity, and gender equity.