marilyn miller thomas-houston, a multidisciplinary trained scholar with a PhD in anthropology from NYU, is an associate professor emerita of the University of Florida. A Visiting Digital Humanities Scholar for the Department of African American Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Outreach Coordinator for its Mellon-funded Publishing Without Walls initiative thomas-houston is co-founding editor with Daryl Michael Scott of the born-ditigal peer-reviewed journal, Fire!!!: The Multimedia Journal of Black Studies published by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) and currently distributed by JSTOR. Additionally, thomas-houston is the director-producer of several ethnographic films on Black life and history. Her two-part video From These Roots features the life and work of Nova Scotia’s Black basketmaker Clara Gough. Having authored “Stony the Road” to Change: Black Mississippians and the Culture of Social Relations (Cambridge University Press, 2005), thomas-houston is also senior editor of Homing Devices: The Poor as Targets of Public Housing Policy and Practice (Lexington Books, 2006), and editor of the special issue of the International Journal of Africana Studies: Sustaining Black Studies in the 21st Century (National Council for Black Studies, 2008). Much of thomas-houston’s work incorporates exchange of knowledge across social and cultural boundaries. Therefore, her efforts as the Fulbright 2007-2008 Research Chair for Globalization and Cultural Studies at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada included bringing exhibits of African Canadian history and culture to the United States as well as taking African American scholars from institutions in the US to Nova Scotia for her Black Studies Beyond February projects.

Email: mthomash@illinois.edu