Cristina Stanciu

Cristina Stanciu, Ph.D.

Professor

Director, Humanities Research Center (December 2020-present)

cstanciu@vcu.edu

(804) 827-8425

Hibbs Hall, 900 Park Ave., Room 414

Education

Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2011
M.A. in English, Emporia State University, 2002
M.A. in American Cultural Studies, "Al. I. Cuza" University, Romania, 1999
B.A. in English, "Al. I. Cuza" University, Romania, 1998

Research Interests

Cristina Stanciu is an immigrant scholar of Indigenous and Multiethnic Literatures of the United States. Her career so far has been driven by a desire to recover and recirculate Indigenous histories, understand multi-ethnic voices, texts, and archives across time and space, and to think deeply about institutions of knowledge production and dissemination (archives, print culture, spaces of education, and the academy, more broadly). Her scholarly and teaching expertise is in Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS), Multiethnic Literatures of the U.S., Progressive Era literature and visual culture (especially silent film), and critical theory. Dr. Stanciu brings her areas of expertise together in books, edited journal special issues, peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, and other contributions that illuminate the extensive histories of Indigenous and immigrant literatures, and provide new ways to read comparatively across several fields.

As the director of the VCU Humanities Research center, Dr. Stanciu’s leadership is shaped by a belief in values-driven decision-making, collaborative mentorship, and the power of humanistic inquiry to bridge communities. As an academic leader, she is deeply engaged in cultivating research ecosystems through faculty mentorship, strategic planning, external partnerships, and grant development. Whether building research programs, mentoring scholars, or shaping institutional initiatives, she is committed to expanding the reach and relevance of the humanities in higher education and beyond.

Select Publications

Books

The Makings and Unmakings of Americans: Indians and Immigrants in American Literature and Culture, 1879-1924. Yale University Press, January 2023. Shortlisted for the MELUS Book Prize, 2025. Reviewed in The Journal of American Culture, The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association, Multiethnic Literatures of the United States /MELUS, NAIS/Native American and Indigenous Studies journal, The American Indian Culture and Research Journal, The American Historical Review, and American Literary History.
Laura Cornelius Kellogg: Our Democracy and the American Indian and Other Writings. Co-edited with Kristina Ackley. Syracuse University Press, 2015. Paperback, 2021. Reviewed in Choice, NAIS: Native American and Indigenous Studies, Native Scholar, Iroquoia, Transmotion, MELUS, Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies, Legacy.
Race in the Multiethnic Literature Classroom. Co-edited with Gary Totten. University of Illinois Press, 2024. Winner of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association Book Award, 2025.

Indigenous Media Ecologies. Co-edited with Oliver Scheiding and Jill Doerfler. Edited Collection, University of Nebraska Press. Forthcoming, U of Nebraska Press, Fall 2026.
Indigenous Education and the Literature of the Boarding Schools in the U.S. and Canada. Under contract and in preparation, University of Nebraska Press, New Visions in Native American and Indigenous Studies Series.

Selected Single-Authored Published Essays/Chapters (Peer-Reviewed)

“The Intimate Politics of Empire: Child Removal and Indigenous Women’s Writing in Shirley Sterling’s My Name Is Seepeetza.” Women Writing Intimacy and Resistance: Not So Private Conversations. Eds. Valérie Baisnée-Keay et al. Palgrave McMillan, 2025. 101-118.
“A Crack in Her/Bone Memory”: Recovering the Mother’s Story in Rosanna Deerchild’s 'Calling Down the Sky'.” Suffering in Anglophone Literature. Eds. Martina Domines and Charles I. Armstrong. “Reading Trauma and Memory” Series, Rowman and Littlefield, 2024. 279-96.
"Making Americans: Spectacular Nationalism, Americanization, and Silent Film." JAS: Journal of American Studies 56. 1 (February 2022): 1-37. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021875821000542
“’Americanism for Indians:’ Carlos Montezuma’s ‘Immigrant Problem:’ Wassaja, and the Limits of Native Activism.” Studies in American Indian Literatures 33. 1&2 (Spring-Summer 2021): 125-157.
“‘I Tell Heem It not Hees Beesness. I Tell Heem Nothing!’: Americanization, Immigrant Education, and Ethnic Identity at the Turn into the Twentieth Century.” The Italian American Review. 11.1 (2021): 27-50.
“Americanization and the Immigrant Novel, Redux: Abraham Cahan’s The Rise of David Levinsky.” Linguaculture 12. 1 (June 2021): 13-33. Fulbright 2019-2020 Project.
“Native Acts, Immigrant Acts: Citizenship, Naturalization, and the Performance of Civic Identity during the Progressive Era.” JGAPE: Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, Cambridge UP. 20 (April 2021): 252-76. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537781420000080
“The Recovery of the People is Tied to the Recovery of Food”: Food Sovereignty and Winona LaDuke’s Last Standing Woman.“ East-West Cultural Passage 12.2 (December 2019): 121-139.
“Americanization on Native Terms: The Society of American Indians, Citizenship Debates, and Tropes of ‘Racial Difference.’” NAIS: Native American and Indigenous Studies 6.1 (2019): 111-148. DOI: 10.5749/natiindistudj.6.1.0111
“Marcus E. Ravage’s An American in the Making, Americanization, and New Immigrant Representation.” MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States 40.2 (Summer 2015): 5-29.
“Strangers in America: Yiddish Poetry at the Turn of the Twentieth Century and the Demands of Americanization.” College English 76.1 (September 2013): 59-83.
“An Indian Woman of Many Hats: Laura Cornelius Kellogg’s Embattled Search for an Indigenous Voice.” Special issue on the Society of American Indians, American Indian Quarterly 37:3/SAIL, Studies in American Indian Literatures 25:2 (Summer 2013): 87-115.
“‘That Is Why I Sent You to Carlisle’: Indian Poetry and the Demands of Americanization Poetics and Politics.” American Indian Quarterly 37.2 (Spring 2013): 34-76.

Guest Editor, Journal Special Issues (Peer-Reviewed)

“Indigenous Periodicals.” Special issue of American Periodicals, 33.2. Co-edited with Oliver Scheiding and Jill Doerfler. In press and forthcoming, October 2023.
Representations of Indigeneity: History, Literature, and Anthropology.” Special issue of the journal ACTA IASSYENSIA COMPARATIONIS” 27.2 (Fall 2021).
“Pedagogy in Anxious Times.” MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States, 42.4 (Winter 2017). Co-edited with Anastasia Lin.

Selected Recent Grants

Mellon Foundation director’s grant to VCU, “Indigenous Humanities,” 2025-2027; VCU Global Partnership Impact Award, 2025-2026; Mellon Foundation Fellowship for Leaders in the Humanities (HERS) Institute, 2024-2025; Fulbright Canada Research Chair Award, Western U, Ontario, Canada, 2023-2024; Breakthrough Grant, VCU (PI, with B. Daugherity and R. Gomez), 2024-2026; Fulbright Scholar Award, Al. I Cuza University, Iasi, Romania, 2019-2020; Obama Fellowship, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany, 2020.

Affiliations

Editor, Global Indigenous Literatures Book Series, U of Nebraska Press, 2025
Editorial Board Member, Amerikastudien /American Studies (Germany), 2025-2029
Editorial Board Member, PMLA, 2022-2024
Editorial Board Member, NAIS, 2021-2025
Book Review Editor, MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States, 2020–2023
Membership and Media Chair, MELUS (The Society for the Study of Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States), 2015–2021

Courses

ENGL 358: Native American and Indigenous Literatures (Undergraduate)
ENGL 381: Multiethnic Literatures of the United States (Undergraduate)
ENGL 311: Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory (Undergraduate)
ENGL 661: Indigenous Literature and Visual Culture (Graduate) English
ENGL 624: Critical Race Theory (Graduate)

Representative External Fellowships

Visiting Professor, University of Bordeaux Montaigne, Spring 2026.
Fulbright Canada Research Chair in Justice and Reconciliation, Canada, 2023-2024
Obama Institute Fellowship, Johannes Gutenberg University, Germany, 2020
Fulbright Scholar Award, Romania, 2019-2020
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Award, 2017
The AAUW American Postdoctoral Research Leave Fellowship, 12 months, 2015–2016
The Reese Fellowship in American Bibliography and the History of the Book in the Americas, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University, 2014–2015
The Monticello College Foundation Fellowship, The Newberry Library, Chicago IL, 2013–2014
Pre-Doctoral Fellowship in American Indian Studies, Michigan State University, 2008–2009
Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies Fellowship, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 2006–2007

Awards

Distinguished Service Award, College of Humanities and Sciences, VCU, 2023
National, International Recognition (NIRA) Award for Research, VCU, 2024
SCHEV Outstanding Faculty Award Nomination, 2023 (CHS) and 2025 (VCU)