Steering Committee

Mark Elliott (Convener)

Dr. Elliott is Associate Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He is the author of Color-Blind Justice: Albion Tourgée and the Quest for Racial Equality from the Civil War to Plessy v. Ferguson (Oxford University Press, 2006) which won the Avery O. Craven Prize by the Organization of American Historians. His current book project examines ideas of American exceptionalism and human rights from the Civil War era to the First World War.

Michael Broache

Dr. Broache is Assistant Professor of Political Science at UNCG. He earned a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University, M.Phil in International Relations from the University of Cambridge, and A.B. in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University. Dr. Broache's research focus on the role and impact of international law in promoting human rights and preventing mass violence, with a substantive emphasis on the International Criminal Court and a regional focus on sub-Saharan Africa. Dr. Broache's research has been published or is forthcoming in the International Journal of Transitional Justice, Journal of the Middle East and Africa, the Journal of Global Security Studies, and edited volumes on fieldwork and political science research methods, and he has previously written for the Washington Post's "Monkey Cage" political science blog. Dr. Broache currently teaches courses in international relations, international law, international security, African politics, and genocide and mass atrocities, while also serving as moderator for the UNCG Model United Nations program.

Danielle Bouchard

Dr. Bouchard is Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies. Her first book, A Community of Disagreement: Feminism in the University (Peter Lang, 2012), uses the philosophical concept of disagreement to investigate and question the common ways in which feminist scholars have narrated the history and place of feminism in the US university. She has published articles on feminist philosophy, visual studies, and critical approaches to human rights discourses in venues such as Genders; Culture, Theory and Critique; and forthcoming in Feminist Formations and the Journal of American Studies. She is currently working to complete a monograph entitled Ruins of the Human: Humanitarianism and Visual Cultures of Destruction. Engaging in a philosophical and literary analysis of texts produced by humanitarian organizations, as well as by both popular media and scholarly outlets which take up humanitarian issues, Ruins of the Human tracks the afterlife of colonial forms of visual knowledge production. It follows the concept of ruination through its capricious and various manifestations—as radical obliteration, as absenting/disappearance, and as the spectacle of torture or killing—in order to draw attention to, and ultimately critique, the terrible importance of an imagistic archive of destruction to humanitarian projects and discourses.

Will Dodson

Dr. Dodson is the Ashby and Strong Residential College Coordinator and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Media Studies at UNC Greensboro. He teaches courses on rhetoric, literature, and film, with a focus on exploitation and marginalized literature and cinema. He has published essays on Tod Browning, Jess Franco, Hugo Haas and Shirley Jackson, and various film genres in edited collections and journals including Quarterly Review of Film & Video and Film International. He is the co-editor, with David A. Cook, of The Anthem Series on Exploitation and Industry in Global Cinema, a book series on exploitation films and filmmakers and the various ways in which they have subsidized mainstream cinema and culture and have represented marginalized identities. He is the co-editor with Kristopher D. Woofter of American Twilight: The Cinema of Tobe Hooper (University of Texas Press, 2021). His current books-in-progress are Alien Invasion TV From the Cold War to QAnon: Paranoia and Conspiracy Culture on the Small Screen (Bloomsbury, co-written with Siera Schubach), and Teen Comedies and the Crisis of Masculinity (Anthem).

Denisa Jashari

Dr. Jashari is Assistant Professor of Latin American History at UNCG. She received both her Ph.D. in History and M.A. in Latin American Studies from Indiana University, and BS from Trinity College. Dr. Jashari’s research interests focus on urban and social history and the politics of the urban poor during periods of democracy and authoritarianism. She is currently working on her first book manuscript tentatively titled, Cartographies of Conflict: Political Culture and Urban Protest in Santiago, Chile, 1872-1994. She teaches courses on colonial and modern Latin American history, urban history, revolutions and counterrevolutions, and the Cold War.

Jeff Jones

A native North Carolinian (born in the mountains in Jefferson; grew up in Liberty, NC) who did all of his undergraduate and graduate work at UNC-Chapel Hill, Dr. Jones is currently (since 2000) a Professor in Russian/Soviet and world history at the UNCG. His book, Everyday Life and the ‘Reconstruction’ of Soviet Russia During and After the Great Patriotic War, 1943-1948, was published by Slavica Publishers in 2008. He has published a number of articles as well, including most recently (Winter 2018) an article, “Mothers, Prostitutes, and the Collapse of the USSR: The Representation of Women in Svetlana Alexievich’s Zinky Boys,” in a Special Edition of Canadian Slavonic Papers guest edited by Alexievich herself, the 2015 Nobel Prize winner for Literature. He is currently working on a book entitled Smoke, Mirrors, and Memories: Perspectives of the Soviet-Afghan War, 1979-2014.

Jeremy Rinker

Jeremy Rinker, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at UNCG’s Department of Peace and Conflict Studies where he researches the intersections between narrative, violent conflict, and nonviolent conflict transformation. Jeremy’s research interests revolve around the centrality of justice discourse, trauma awareness, and collective resilience in communities, institutions, and movements working for social change. Jeremy’s praxis has long revolved around the intersections of diverse global and local conflict contexts, including, but not limited to, the historical collective trauma of post-colonial Indian experiences of Partition and caste as a Nehru-Fulbright grant awardee (2013-14), local refugee health and wellness (with UNCG/HHS Research Excellence internal funding), and the understanding and evaluation of narrative and restorative-based conflict intervention practices. Dr. Rinker believes strongly in the social power of both theory and belief to change human lives. He is also a UNCG/ICEE faculty fellow developing circles of practice and exploring the power of circles in facilitating change in groups and classrooms in addition to being a documentary film enthusiast.

Staff support provided by Agnes Szarka (Political Science) and Anne Owens (University Libraries).

Former Members

Jerry Pubantz

Dr. Pubantz is Professor of Political Science and founding dean of UNCG’s Lloyd International Honors College. He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. from Duke University and a B.S.F.S. degree from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He is the co-author or editor of six books on the United Nations, including the recently published second edition of The New United Nations: International Organization in the Twenty-first Century. Among his other volumes are Is There a Global Right to Democracy? A Philosophical Analysis of Peacekeeping and Nation Building and the Encyclopedia of the United Nations. His writings include works not only on the United Nations, but also on human rights, U.S.-Russian Relations, the Middle East, and American Foreign Policy. Dr. Pubantz is a member of the Middle East Policy Council’s National Advisory Board and former President of the North Carolina Political Science Association. His articles have appeared in Politics and Policy, the International Encyclopedia of Political Science, ArabiesTrends, Social Forces, and the Turkish Journal of International Relations among other periodicals. Dr. Pubantz appears regularly on television and radio to discuss American politics and international affairs. He is the former Chairman of the National Collegiate Conference Association, corporate sponsor of the National Model United Nations in New York City. He has lectured at universities and colleges across the nation and internationally.

Robert Griffiths

Dr. Griffiths was formerly Associate Professor of Political Science at UNCG, where he taught African politics, international security, international law, and the politics of the non-western world. Professor Griffiths was also the faculty adviser for Model United Nations. For twenty years, Dr. Griffiths edited the reader, Annual Editions: The Developing World for McGraw-Hill Publishers. Professor Griffiths’ research interests focus on democracy, security, and development in Africa and U.S. security cooperation with Africa. His publications include: “Democratizing South African Civil-Military Relations: A Blueprint for Post-Conflict Reform?” in War and Peace in Africa: History, Nationalism, and the State and “Parliamentary Oversight of Defense in South Africa” in The Role of Parliaments in Conflict-Affected Countries, and U.S. Security Cooperation with Africa: Political and Policy Challenges (2016).

Lynda Kellam

Ms. Kellam was formerly Assistant Director of International & Global Studies and Social Sciences Data Librarian at the UNC Greensboro's University Libraries. As Assistant Director of IGS, she taught the introductory level course and coordinated program events. As the Social Sciences Data Librarian, she provided research assistance and instructional support for data sources and supports research data management. She is currently Senior Data Librarian at Cornell University. She received her MA in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and her MLIS from UNC Greensboro.