BRANDI THOMPSON SUMMERS, PHD University of California, Berkeley Department of Geography 589 McCone Hall Berkeley, CA 94720 [email protected] branditsummers.com ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS University of California, Berkeley, Associate Professor, Department of Geography, Berkeley, CA, 2022 – current Assistant Professor of Geography, Department of Geography, and core faculty affiliate in Global Metropolitan Studies, Berkeley, CA, 2019 – 2022 Virginia Commonwealth University, Assistant Professor, Department of African American Studies, Richmond, VA, 2015 – 2019 EDUCATION PhD, Sociology, University of California, Santa Cruz, Department of Sociology, Santa Cruz, CA, December 2014 MA, Sociology, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, 2010 MA, Social Sciences, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 2000BA, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 1999, Major in History, with Distinction PUBLICATIONS Book Summers, Brandi Thompson. 2019. Black in Place: The Spatial Aesthetics of Race in a Post-Chocolate City. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Journal Articles (Peer-Reviewed) Summers, Brandi and Desiree Fields. 2022. “Speculative Urban Worldmaking: Meeting Financial Violence with a Politics of Collective Care,” Antipode, DOI: 10.1111/anti.12900 (online first ahead of print). Summers, Brandi. 2022. “Black Insurgent Aesthetics and the Public Imaginary,” Urban Geography 43(6): 837-847. Summers, Brandi Thompson. 2021. “Reclaiming the Chocolate City: Soundscapes of Gentrification and Resistance in Washington, DC,” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 39(1): 30-46. Summers, Brandi Thompson and Kathryn Howell. 2019. “Fear and Loathing (of Others): Race, Class, and Contestation of Space in Washington, D.C.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 43(6): 1085-1105. Summers, Brandi. 2017. “Race as Aesthetic: The Politics of Vision, Visibility, and Visuality in Vogue Italia’s ‘A Black Issue.’” QED: A Journal of GLBTQ Worldmaking 4(3): 81-108. Academic Essays Summers, Brandi. 2022. “Urban Phantasmagorias.” City 26(2-3): 191-198.
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Summers, Brandi Thompson and Olalekan Jeyifous. 2022. “Apocryphal Gospel of Oakland: (Im)permanence, Improvisation, and Our Absurdist Future.” Perspecta 54: Yale Journal of Architecture. Summers, Brandi T. 2021. “Untimely Futures.” Places Journal, November 9. Summers, Brandi T. 2021. “Aesthetic Activism and the Quest for Authenticity in a Time of Crisis.” Mediapolis: A Journal of Cities and Culture 6(3), June 14. Summers, Brandi Thompson. 2021. “Book Review Symposium: Black in Place” (Author response). Antipode Online, March 8. Summers, Brandi Thompson. 2020. “The Chocolate State,” Washington History 32(1/2): 21-23 (peer-reviewed). Summers, Brandi. 2019. “‘Housing is a Natural Right, Not a Privilege’: Anti-Gentrification Activism in a Chocolate City.” The Funambulist 22, March 4:12-14. Summers, Brandi Thompson. 2019. “Post-Apocalyptic Shine in the Afro-Future.” ASAP/Journal 4(2): 317-320. Summers, Brandi, Tanisha Ford, and Siobhan Carter-David. 2018. “Janet Jackson’s Skinny Jeans.” ASAP/Journal – Black One Shot 4.4, July 16. Summers, Brandi. 2016. “H Street and the Aesthetics of Cool.” The Sociologist. Washington DC: District of Columbia Sociological Society, January: 3-9. Book Chapters Summers, Brandi Thompson. 2021. “Race, Authenticity, and the Gentrified Aesthetics of Belonging.” Pp. 115-139. In C. Lindner and G. Sandoval, eds. Aesthetics of Gentrification: Seductive Spaces and Exclusive Communities in the Neoliberal City, Amsterdam University Press. Summers, Brandi Thompson. 2019. “‘Haute (Ghetto) Mess’: Post-Racial Aesthetics and the Seduction of Blackness in High Fashion.” Pp. 245-263. In H. Gray, S. Banet-Weiser, and R. Mukherjee, eds. Racism Post-Race: Culture, Critique, and the Color Line. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Summers, Brandi. 2019. “Crafting Selves: Elia Alba’s Supperclub and the Politics of Home(place).” Pp. 40-51. In S. Reisman, G. Bolster, and A. Nanda, eds. The Supper Club: by Elia Alba. Chicago: Hirmer Publishers. Summers, Brandi. 2015. “H Street, Main Street and the Neoliberal Aesthetics of Cool.” Pp. 299-314. In D. Hyra and S. Prince, eds. Capital Dilemma: Growth and Inequality in Washington, DC. New York: Routledge. Book Reviews Review of Orly Clerge, The New Noir: Race, Identity & Diaspora in Black Suburbia. Oakland: University of California Press, 2019. American Journal of Sociology, 126(5): 1268-1270. Review of Paula Austin, Coming of Age in Jim Crow DC: Navigating the Politics of Everyday Life. New York: New York University Press, 2019. Journal of African American History, 106(1): 153-154. Review of Michelle Ann Stephens, Skin Acts: Race, Psychoanalysis, and the Black Male Performer. Durham: Duke University Press, 2014. Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 40(2): 317-319. Review of Nicole Fleetwood, Troubling Vision: Performance, Visuality, and Blackness. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013. Callaloo 36(2): 471-474. Review of Imani Perry, More Beautiful and More Terrible: The Embrace and Transcendence of Racial Inequality in the United States. New York: New York University Press, 2011. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 34(11):1997-1998. Public Scholarship
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Summers, Brandi. 2020. “We Need Action to Accompany Art.” The Boston Globe, June 11. Summers, Brandi. 2020. “Race and the Quarantined City/What Black America Knows About Quarantine.” The New York Times, May 15. Summers, Brandi. 2020. “Authenticity and ‘Post-Chocolate’ Cool in a Rapidly Gentrifying Washington, D.C.” Next City, April 27. Summers, Brandi. 2018. “Black Aesthetic/Aesthetic Black: Race, Space, and the Possibilities of Becoming.” Public Seminar, May 7. Summers, Brandi. 2016. “Black Lives Under Surveillance.” Public Books, December 1. LECTURES AND PRESENTATIONS Invited Talks: “Spatial Temporalities: The Future-Pasts of Black Dispossession,” Seminar Series, University of Sheffield (UK), Department of Urban Studies and Planning (online), May 2022. “Echoes of a Chocolate City: Race, Aesthetics, and Black Urbanism,” Debra Friedman Memorial Lecture, University of Washington – Tacoma, School of Urban Studies (online), April 2022. “Spatial Temporalities: The Future-Pasts of Black Dispossession,” Center for Cultural Studies Colloquium Series, University of California, Santa Cruz (online), April 2022. “Black Insurgent Aesthetics & The Public Imaginary,” Urban Inequalities Workshop, Boston University (online), March 2022 “Spatial Temporalities: The Future-Pasts of Black Dispossession,” MLK Annual Lecture, University of Southern California – School of Architecture (online), January 2022. “Spatial Temporalities: The Future-Pasts of Black Dispossession,” UCLA – Department of Geography (online), November 2021. “Spatial Temporalities: The Future-Pasts of Black Dispossession,” Columbia University – Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (online), October 2021. “A Tale of Two Cities: Black Insurgent Aesthetics & The Public Imaginary,” University of Maryland, College Park, Department of Urban Planning (online), February 2021. “Race and the Soundscapes of Gentrification,” Racism and Racial Experiences (RARE) Workgroup, Rice University (online), January 2021. “Unmaking a Chocolate City: Spatial Aesthetics of Race and the Gentrifying Urban Landscape,” University of Leicester, Department of Geography (online), November 2020. “Traces of a Chocolate City: Blackness, Urban Aesthetics, and the Politics of Gentrification,” Letitia Woods Brown Memorial Lecture, D.C. History Conference (online), November 2020. “A Tale of Two Cities: Black Insurgent Aesthetics & The Public Imaginary,” University of California, Los Angeles, Luskin School of Public Affairs (online), November 2020. “Unmaking a Chocolate City: Spatial Aesthetics of Race and the Gentrifying Urban Landscape,” University of Kentucky, Department of Geography (online), October 2020. “Black in Place: The Spatial Aesthetics of a Post-Chocolate City” (book talk), Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum (online), October 2020.
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“Black in Place: The Spatial Aesthetics of a Post-Chocolate City,” University of California, Santa Cruz, Department of Sociology. May 2020. Postponed due to COVID-19. “Black in Place: The Spatial Aesthetics of a Post-Chocolate City” (book talk/webinar), Next City (online), April 2020. “Black in Place: The Spatial Aesthetics of a Post-Chocolate City” (book talk), Global Metropolitan Studies Lecture Series, University of California, Berkeley, (online), April 2020. “Black in Place: The Spatial Aesthetics of a Post-Chocolate City” (book talk), Solid State Books, Washington, DC, March 2020. Postponed due to COVID-19. “Black in Place: The Spatial Aesthetics of a Post-Chocolate City” (book talk), Politics and Prose, Washington, DC, February 2020. “Staged Encounters: Embodiment, Architecture, and Urbanism,” Mellon Forum, Princeton School of Architecture, Princeton, NJ, February 2020. “The Corner: Spatial Aesthetics and Black Bodies in Place,” Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, June 2019. “Unmaking a Chocolate City: Spatial Aesthetics of Race and the Gentrifying Urban Landscape,” Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, April 2019. “Unmaking a Chocolate City: Spatial Aesthetics of Race and the Gentrifying Urban Landscape,” Hollins University, Roanoke, VA, April 2019. “The Corner: Spatial Aesthetics and Black Bodies in Place,” SLOW LAB at the College of Design, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, January 2019. “The Art of Inclusion and Community Engaged Research,” Arc of Racial Justice Institute, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA, May 2018. “The Aesthetics of Difference and the Art of Inclusion,” Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA), Richmond, VA, April 2018. “Shifting Cultural Landscapes in Chocolate City,” for the Chocolate City book talk, American University, Washington, D.C., November 2017. “The Politics of Soul Style: Fashion, Race and African American History,” Georgetown University, Washington, DC, November 2016. “Black Bodies, Spatial Aesthetics, and DC’s Go-Go Economy,” The City College of New York (CUNY), Center for Worker Education, New York, NY, October 2016. “Gentrification and Race in the U.S.,” Minority Political Leadership Institute (MPLI), Virginia Legislative Black Caucus Foundation and The Grace E. Harris Leadership Institute, Washington, DC, September 2016. “Race and Urban Aesthetics in Washington, DC,” Urban Studies Humanities Lab, American University, Washington, DC, February 2016. “Un/Making Blackness: On the Aesthetic Discourses of Post-Race and Urban Space,” Race and Public Space Working Group, Institute for Public Knowledge, New York University, New York, NY, October 2015. “Hot Food / Haute Cuisine: Aesthetics, Race, and Authenticity in the Atlas District,” American Studies Day, American University, Washington, DC, April 2015. “H Street Main Street and the Neoliberal Aesthetics of Cool,” Metropolitan Policy Center Urban Speakers Series, School of Public Affairs, American University, Washington, DC, November 2014. Invited Panels:
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“Spatial Politics Against Global Anti-Blackness,” with Jacqueline Nassy Brown, Anthony Johnson, and Frank Guridy, “Seeing the Valley, Facing the Acropolis: A Symposium in Honor of Steven Gregory,” Columbia University, Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies, New York, NY, November 2022. “Home Displaced,” with Amanda Boston, Maya Kearney, Joan Morgan, “Home, What Does It Look Like?” series, New York University, Center for Black Visual Culture (online), February 2022. “Under Consideration: Session IX,” University of Michigan, Taubman College (online), February 2022. “Skyrise: June Jordan’s Architectural Imaginary,” with Olalekan Jeyifous and Mabel O. Wilson, Critical Conversations Speakers Series, University of California, Berkeley (online), October 2021. “From ‘Upscaling’ to Uhauling: Perspectives on Black/Queer Gentrification” – in conversation with J. Jack Gieseking (University of Kentucky), City University of New York Graduate Center – The Center for Place, Culture, and Politics (online), April 2021. “Black Feminist Geographies of Emancipation,” with Savannah Shange (UC Santa Cruz), Critical Conversations Speakers Series, University of California, Berkeley, Department of African American Studies (online), April 2021. “(Im)permanence, Improvisation, and Our Absurdist Future,” with Olalekan Jeyifous, Architecture + Global Metropolitan Studies Lecture, UC Berkeley (online), March 2021. “Black Future Worldmaking,” RAI Goes to the Movies – Sorry to Bother You and Blindspotting panel, with Brittney Edmonds (University of Wisconsin, Madison) and Denzel Whittaker, University of Oxford, Rothermere American Institute (online), March 2021. “The Geographies of Racial Capitalism” panel with Anne Bonds (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) and Ashok Kumar (Birkbeck University of London), University of Cambridge, Conservation Research Institute (online), February 2021. “Where the Pavement Ends” live panel with Jane Gillooly and Tonika Johnson, San Francisco Urban Film Festival (online), February 2021. “Living Through Upheaval: Under Fire” panel, with Elizabeth Povinelli (Columbia University), Elizabeth Hoover (UC Berkeley), Karen Tei Yamashita (UC Santa Cruz), University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI) (online), December 2020. “Authors Meet Critics - Fear and Loathing (of others): Race, Class and Contestations of Space in Washington, D.C., with Kathryn Howell, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (online), November 2020. “Author Meets Critic - Black in Place: The Spatial Aesthetics of a Post-Chocolate City,” with Nikki Jones (UC Berkeley), University of California, Berkeley (online), October 2020. “COVID-19 and Racial Inequities: Unpacking the Anti-Black Response,” with Rhea Boyd and Aresha Martinez-Cardoso, Race & Capitalism Project, University of Chicago (online), June 2020. “Knowledge for Freedom: ‘Black Study’ and the Present Struggle, A Conversation with Nikhil Pal Singh, Savannah Shange, and Brandi Thompson Summers,” Mills College (online), June 2020. “We’re Not Leaving Without a Fight,” Students of Color in Public Policy (SCiPP) Keynote event with Corrina Gould and Carroll Fife, University of California, Berkeley (online), April 2020. “Black to the Future: Blackness, Space, and Power in Changing Times—A Conversation between Alicia Garza and Brandi Thompson Summers,” Mills College, Oakland, CA, February 2020. “Black Aesthetics/Aesthetic Blackness,” University of Pennsylvania Africana Studies Graduate Symposium, “Black Aesthetics: Expressions and Interiority,” Philadelphia, PA, April 2018. “Race and Change in the Atlas District,” Book Forum: Capital Dilemma: Growth and Inequality in Washington, DC, Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum, Washington, DC, July 2016.
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Selected Conference Presentations: “Black Joy as Recovery and the Fight Against Place Annihilation,” Urban Frontiers: A Conference on Gentrification Studies (online), July 2021. “Reclaiming the Chocolate City: Soundscapes of Gentrification and Resistance in Washington, D.C.,” paper prepared for the “Black Community, Entrepreneurship and Resistance at Work” session, American Sociological Association (ASA) Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (online), August 2020. “Reclaiming the Chocolate City: #DontMuteDC and the Soundscapes of Gentrification,” paper prepared for the “Race and the Spatial Aesthetics of Gentrification” session, American Association of Geographers (AAG) Annual Meeting, Denver, CO, April 2020. Cancelled due to COVID-19. “A Haute [Ghetto] Mess: Black Authenticity and Visual Artifice in Vogue Italia,” paper prepared for the “Textures Pop-Up Lab: An Interactive Workshop on Black Fashion and Visual Culture” session, Race in the Marketplace (RIM) Symposium, Paris, France, June 2019. “Chocolate Lives in a Post-Chocolate City,” paper prepared for the “Chocolate Cities: The Black Map of American Life,” Black Geographies Plenary, American Association of Geographers (AAG) Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, April 2019. “Consuming Black Space and Culture: Race, Authenticity, and Quality-of-Life Aesthetics in Washington, D.C.,” paper prepared for the “Critical Histories & Geographies of Racialized Space in Washington, D.C.” panel, American Association of Geographers (AAG) Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, April 2019. “Washington’s ‘Atlas District’ and the New Regime of Diversity,” paper prepared for the “Organizing in Chocolate City: Race, Planning, and Social Justice in Washington, D.C.,” panel, The American Association of Geographers (AAG) Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, April 2019. “Imagination & Ingenuity: Prison as Learning Space” panel, SXSW EDU Conference & Festival, Austin, TX, March 2019. “Racial Architectures of Urban Space,” paper prepared for the “Crises of ConFORMity: The Material Dimensions of Race and the Built Environment” panel, American Studies Association (ASA) Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA, November 2018. “Spatial Aesthetics and Black Bodies in Place,” paper prepared for the “(Dis)placement and (Dis)possession” panel, (anti)Blackness in the American Metropolis Workshop, Baltimore, MD, November 2018. “Geographies of Blackness in a Post-Chocolate City,” paper prepared for the “Local Perspectives on D.C.’s Rebirth” panel, Broken Landscapes: Local Perspectives on Black Architects and Planners Since 1968, Howard University, Washington, D.C., September 2018. “A Haute [Ghetto] Mess: Black Authenticity and Visual Artifice in Vogue Italia,” paper prepared for the “Textures Pop-Up Lab: An Interactive Workshop on Black Fashion and Visual Culture” session, Fashion and Photography: An Inclusive Interdisciplinary Project – Progressive Connexions, Palermo, Italy, June 2018. “Revitalized Displacement: The Mark of Diversity in a Gentrifying Commercial Corridor,” paper prepared for the “Urban Planning Amid Demographic Change: Re-Thinking Key Policy Topics Informing the Process” panel, Sharing Space: Examining African American and Latino Intercultural Exchanges in Dynamic Neighborhoods, American University, Washington, D.C., May 2018. “Black Geographies and the Spatial Containment of Race,” Paper prepared for the “Representations of the Black Spatial Imaginary” session, American Association of Geographers (AAG) Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, April 2018.
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“The Corner: Black Bodies, Spatial Aesthetics, and DC’s Go-Go Economy,” paper prepared for the “Race, Resources, and Real Estate” session, Modern Languages Association (MLA) Annual Meeting, New York, NY, January 2018. “Neoliberalism and Black Containment,” paper prepared for the “Geographic Blackness” panel, Black Geographies Symposium at the University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, October 2017. “Fear and Loathing (of Others) in Washington, D.C.,” paper prepared for the “Space and Place” session, American Sociological Association (ASA) Annual Meeting, Montréal, QC, August 2017. “Queer Imaginations of Black Beauty,” paper prepared for the “Material Girls in a Material World: The Politics of Black Fashion and Glamour in the African Diaspora” panel, Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders, and Sexualities, Hempstead, NY, June 2017. “Haute [Ghetto] Mess: Post-Racial Aesthetics and the Seduction of Blackness in High Fashion,” paper prepared for the “Race Postrace: Culture, Critique, and the Color Line” panel, Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, March 2017. “The Changing Face of a Black Place: Spatializing Nostalgia and Cultural Tourism,” paper prepared for the “Gentrification, (Re)Settlement, and Cultures of Resistance” panel, American Studies Association (ASA) Annual Meeting, Denver, CO, November 2016. “Street Life: Black Bodies and Spatial Aesthetics in a Post-Chocolate City,” paper prepared for “The Body is a Border: Race, Aesthetics and Transformation” panel, National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) Annual Meeting, Montréal, QC, November 2016 (Invited). “Diversity as Tableau: Race, Space and Redevelopment in Washington D.C.,” paper prepared with Dr. Kathryn Howell, for the “Race and the Changing Urban Landscape” panel, Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) Annual Meeting, October 2016. “The Corner: Black Bodies, Spatial Aesthetics, and DC’s Go-Go Economy,” paper prepared for the “Methods of Engagement and Change: Womanism, Sista Circle, Encounter Theatre, and Racial/Spatial Aesthetics” panel, National Council for Black Studies (NCBS) Annual Conference, Charlotte, NC, March 2016. “H Street Main Street and the Neoliberal Aesthetics of Cool,” paper prepared for the “Gentrification Gone Wild: Race, Class and Politics in Washington, DC” panel, 42nd Annual Conference on D.C. Historical Studies, Washington, DC, November 2015. “Selling Haute Pu$$y: Defining an Aesthetic Market for Blackness in High Fashion,” paper prepared for “Stylin’: A Century of Fashion and Beauty Politics in the Diaspora” roundtable, Association for the Study of African American Life and History Annual Conference, Atlanta, GA, September 2015. “Black Bodies, Diverse Spaces: Neoliberal Aesthetics of Cool in a Post-Chocolate City,” paper prepared for “Race, Aesthetics, and Neighborhood Composition and Change Panel,” Association of Black Sociologists Annual Conference, Chicago, IL, August 2015. “Visible Selves: Fashioned Bodies and the Spectacle of Race in High Fashion,” paper prepared for “Street Wear to Haute Couture: Race, Gender, and Hip Hop Style Politics,” National Council for Black Studies (NCBS) Annual Conference, Miami, FL, March 2014. “Neoliberalism,” paper prepared for “Keywords of Black Visuality” Panel, American Studies Association (ASA) Annual Conference, San Juan, Puerto Rico, November 2012 (Invited). “Reparations in a time of Terror?” co-authored paper with Cathy Cohen and Deva Woodly, American Political Science Association (APSA) Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, September 2004. Chair, Discussant, Organizer
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“Urban Sociology I,” chair and organizer, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, CA, August 2022. “Urban Sociology II,” organizer, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, CA, August 2022. “Race and the Spatial Aesthetics of Gentrification,” chair, organizer, and discussant, American Association of Geographers Annual Conference, April 2021 (online). “Segregation as Discursive Practice,” discussant, Segregation and Resistance in the Landscape Symposium, Dumbarton Oaks, September 2020 (online). Berkeley Black Geographies Workshop: The Black Geographic, co-organizer, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, March 2020. “Disaster Capitalism and the Politics of Place,” chair, American Studies Association Annual Conference, Honolulu, HI, November 2019. “Gender, Race, and Equality,” chair, American Studies Association Annual Conference, Honolulu, HI, November 2019. Textures Material Culture Lab Spring Seminar, Spatial Intimacies: The Body and the Built Environment, co-organizer, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, May 2019. “Feeling Race and Spatial Inequalities: 50 Years after the Kerner Commission Report,” Thematic Session for Section on Community and Urban Sociology, co-chair and presider, American Sociological Association Annual Conference, Philadelphia, PA, August 2018. “Representations of the Black Spatial Imaginary,” Black Geographies Specialty Group, discussant and panelist, American Association of Geographers Annual Conference, New Orleans, LA, April 2018. “‘In Order to Lessen Tensions’: The Pilot District Project and Washington, D.C., 1968-1971,” Thematic Session, discussant, 44th Annual D.C. History Annual Conference, Washington, DC, November 2017. GRANTS, FELLOWSHIPS, AND HONORS Humanities in Place Grant, “Archive of Urban Futures,” The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (with Moms 4 Housing), 2022 – 2024 ($350,000) American Cultures Excellence in Teaching Award, UC Berkeley, 2022 Hellman Fellowship (with Desiree Fields), UC Berkeley, 2021 – 2022 ($59, 987.55) Presidential Chair Fellows Grant Program (with Christine Palmer, T. Carlis Roberts, and Bryan Wagner), UC Berkeley, 2021 – 2022 ($21,300) Institute for the Study of Societal Issues (ISSI) Faculty Seed Grant, UC Berkeley, 2021 ($5,000) Regents’ Junior Faculty Fellowship, UC Berkeley, 2020 ($7,500) Institute for Citizens & Scholars, Career Enhancement Fellowship, 2018-2019 ($31,500) Research Travel Grant, Humanities Research Center, VCU, 2018 ($1,500) Faculty Council Research and Professional Development Grant, VCU College of Humanities 2018 ($750) Seed Award, VCU College of Humanities and Sciences, 2018 ($2,600) VCU Council for Community Engagement Grant, “Building on Sacred Ground: The Art of Remembrance,” Principal Investigator (with Melanie Buffington and Nicole Myers Turner), 2017 – 2018 ($10,000) Conference Travel Grant, Humanities Research Center, VCU, 2016 ($1500), 2017 ($1000), 2018 ($1500)
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Fellow, Summer Institute on Tenure and Professional Advancement (SITPA), Duke University, 2016 – 2018 Finalist, Princeton-Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism & the Humanities Fellowship Program, 2016 Undergraduate Research Exposure Course Grant, VCU Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, 2016 ($5,000) Research and Travel Graduate Fellowship Award, Sociology Department, UC Santa Cruz, 2011, 2013, 2014Dissertation Funding Support, Sociology Department, UC Santa Cruz, 2013 – 2014 Graduate Student Grant, University of California Center for New Racial Studies (UCCNRS), 2012 – 2013 ($4,500)Honorable Mention, Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship Program, 2012Predoctoral Research Development Grant, Social Science Research Council (SSRC), 2011Summer Dissertation Fellowship, Sociology Department, UC Santa Cruz, 2011Graduate Research Fellowship (with Professor Deborah Gould), Sociology Department, UC Santa Cruz, 2010Regents Fellowship, University of California, Santa Cruz, 2010Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship, University of California, Santa Cruz, 2008 – 2013Trustees Fellowship, Division of the Social Sciences, University of Chicago, 2001 – 2003Honors Distinction, Department of History, University of Pennsylvania, 1999 Andrew W. Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, University of Pennsylvania, 1997 – 1999 TEACHING Black Geographies, Graduate seminar, Fall 2020 & 2022 The Urban Experience, Undergraduate lecture, Spring 2021 & 2022 Race, Aesthetics, and the Gentrified City, Undergraduate seminar, Fall 2020 Urban Sites and City Life, Undergraduate lecture, Spring 2020 & 2021 Street Life: Race and Aesthetics in the Urban Environment, Undergraduate seminar, Spring 2016 & 2017 Black Sites and Sights: Race and Visual Media, Undergraduate lecture, Fall 2015 & 2016 Resident Blackness: Oral History and African American Life, Undergraduate seminar, Spring 2018 Art of Darkness: Perspectives on African and African American Contemporary Art, Undergraduate seminar, Fall 2016 Applied Concepts in Africana Studies, Undergraduate seminar, Spring 2018 ADVISING Dissertation Committee Chair Tamara Jamil, Department of Geography, University of California, Berkeley Juleon Robinson, Department of Geography, University of California, Berkeley Xiaowei Wang, Department of Geography, University of California, Berkeley Clara Perez, Department of Geography, University of California, Berkeley Dissertation Committee Inside Member:
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Robert Moeller, Department of Geography, University of California, Berkeley William Carter, Department of Geography, University of California, Berkeley Dissertation Committee Outside Member: Rebecca Struch, Department of Performance Studies, University of California, Berkeley Darius Gordon, Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley Ari Green, American Studies, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill PhDs completed Kerby Lynch, Department of Geography, University of California, Berkeley Kaily Heitz, Department of Geography, University of California, Berkeley (2021) Dawn Johnson, Media, Art & Text (MATx) Ph.D. Program, Virginia Commonwealth University (2021) Master’s Theses completed Rasheed El Shabazz, Department of City and Regional Planning, University of California, Berkeley (2021) Hannah M. Cameron, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Virginia Commonwealth University (2019) Calvin Hall, Department of Social Psychology, Virginia Commonwealth University (2019) Ariel Lawrence, Department of English, Virginia Commonwealth University (2017) Undergraduate Honors Advisees Geremy Lowe, Ethnic Studies (Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow mentee), University of California, Berkeley (graduated 2021) Adrian Frias, Geography, University of California, Berkeley Alexis Atsilvsgi, Geography, University of California, Berkeley Lillias Arvanites, Geography, University of California, Berkeley MEDIA Selected Media Interviews Interviewed for Tales of the Town podcast, “Houselessness in Oakland” [audio], October 25, 2022 Interviewed for 1919Radio podcast, “Gentrifying Blackness with Dr. Brandi Summers” [audio], June 18, 2021 Interviewed for Woke History podcast, “Black in Place” [audio], March 17, 2021 Interviewed for New Dawn podcast, “Neoliberalism and Gentrification in a Chocolate City” [audio], January 22, 2021 Interviewed on Aljazeera The Stream, “‘Residue’: What is Lost to Gentrification?” [video], December 2, 2020 Interviewed on The Kojo Nnamdi Show, “What Black Lives Matter Plaza Means To Washingtonians” [audio] August 25, 2020 Interviewed for The Real News Network, “Thinking Beyond Representation: Progressives Weigh in on Harris’ Past,” August 14, 2020 Interviewed for The Monocle Weekly podcast, “The Thinkers Edition: Life in the City,” [audio], July 5, 2020 Interviewed for Political Misfits, “Pandemic, Privatization, a Battle in Brasilia, Black in Aesthetic Only” [audio], May 7, 2020 Interviewed for Washingtonian, “Horace and Dickie’s is Closing: What That Means for D.C.’s Black-Owned Businesses,” February 13, 2020
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Interviewed for Interstitial podcast, “Black in Place” [audio], February 4, 2020 Interviewed on Richmond NBC12, “Digital Dialogue: A Conversation about Race, Politics in Virginia” [video], February 12, 2019 Selected Media Coverage Quoted in KQED, “’A Lesson in Discrimination,’: A Toxic Sea Level Rise Crisis Threatens West Oakland,” September 13, 2022 Quoted in Los Angeles Times, “As Migrants Seek Refuge, America Struggles to Live Up to Its Promise,” May 6, 2021 Quoted in Diverse Issues in Higher Education, “Scholars View Washington, D.C.’s Statehood Prospects,” January 28, 2021 Quoted in DCist, “What does D.C.’s Black Lives Matter Plaza Mean to D.C. Residents? It Depends on Who You Ask,” August 27, 2020 Quoted and cited in New York Times, “Riots Long Ago, Luxury Living Today,” July 10, 2020 Quoted in San Francisco Chronicle, “How 6 Feet of Social Distance is Changing the Relationship with Our Own Space,” June 1, 2020 Quoted in The Chronicle of Higher Education, “When Faculty of Color Feel Isolated,” October 22, 2019 Quoted in Univision, "‘Vete a tu país’: lo que esconde la frase preferida de los racistas que ahora también usa Trump,” July 21, 2019 Quoted in ABC News, “Virginia blackface scandals a reminder of racist practice and its traumatic effect on African-Americans,” February 9, 2019 Featured in Richmond Magazine, “Roll the Clip,” December 5, 2018 Quoted in Equal Times, “The Steady Decline of African-American Culture in Washington, D.C.,” August 22, 2018 Quoted in Glamour, “Why Do We See So Much of Ourselves in Meghan Markle?,” May 18, 2018 Featured in RVA Magazine, “VCU Professors Take a Critical Look at Black Panther Film,” March 20, 2018 Quoted in The Guardian, “DC institution Ben’s Chili Bowl repaints famous mural - without Bill Cosby,” June 25, 2017 PROFESSIONAL SERVICE Editorial positions Editorial Board, cultural geographies, 2021—current Editorial Board, Environment and Planning F: Philosophy, Theory, Models, Methods and Practice, 2021—current Editorial Board, City & Community, 2020—current Editorial Board, American Association of Geographers Review of Books, 2020—current Editorial Board, Urban Geography, 2020—current Editorial Collective, CITY, 2020—current Editorial Collective, ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 2020—current Advisory Board, “Cities and Cultures” series, Amsterdam University Press, 2020—current Service to profession
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Council Member, Community and Urban Sociology Section, American Sociological Association (ASA), 2020–2022 Committee Member, Community and Urban Sociology Section, Membership Committee, American Sociological Association (ASA), 2019—2021 Committee Member, Clyde Woods Black Geographies Graduate Student Paper Award, American Association of Geographers (AAG), 2019 Committee Member, Community and Urban Sociology Section, Graduate Student Paper Award, American Sociological Association (ASA), 2018 Founding Member, Textures Material Culture Lab (collaborative material culture lab curating content at the intersections of fashion, bodies and the built environment), 2017—2020 Mentor, Mellon Mays Fellows Professional Network, 2014 – current Reviewer for Refereed Journals: Antipode, Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Urban Geography, Environment and Planning A, Environment and Planning C, Environment and Planning D, Geoforum, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, City & Community, Sociology of Race & Ethnicity, American Quarterly, Transforming Anthropology, ASAP/Journal, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Women & Performance, Journal of Marketing Management Service to University – University of California, Berkeley Equity Advisor, Department of Geography, 2022 – current Advisory Board Member, Black Studies Collaboratory, 2021 – current Board of Directors, University of California Global Health Institute (UCGHI), 2021 – current Faculty Advisory Board, Network for a New Political Economy, 2021 – current Co-director, Berkeley Lab for Speculative Urbanisms (BLSU), 2020 – 2022 Committee Member, Subcommittee on the Breadth Requirement in American Cultures, 2020 – 2022 Communications Audit Focus Group, 2020 Committee Member, Graduate Student Admissions, Department of Geography, 2019 – 2020 Executive Committee, Global Metropolitan Studies, 2019 – 2022 Service to University – Virginia Commonwealth University Associate Executive Director, Institute for Inclusion, Inquiry & Innovation (iCubed), Virginia Commonwealth University, 2015 – 2019 Director, Center for the Study of Culture, Representation and Race, Virginia Commonwealth University, 2015 – 2016 Committee Member, Department of African American Studies Job Search for Chair of African American Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University, 2016 – 2017 Service to Community Committee Member, Alameda County Ad Hoc Process on Racial Justice and Police Reform, 2020 – 2022 Advisory Board Member, Free Spirit Media, Chicago, IL, 2007 – 2020 Board President, Free Spirit Media, Chicago, IL, 2004 – 2007 Member, Professional Women’s Club of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 2006 – 2007
Summers // CV // 23 November 2022 // p 13
Committee Member, Columbia College Media Production Center Architectural Selection Committee, Chicago, IL, 2006 – 2007 Committee Member, Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Partnership Award for Campus-Community Collaboration, Chicago, IL, 2006 Facilitator, The Public Square at the Illinois Humanities Council, Chicago, IL, 2001 – 2003 Professional Affiliations American Association of Geographers American Sociological Association American Studies Association