CV

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

• Collins, C. Semiotic Landscapes and Fallen Heroes: Repurposing the Myth of the West in Westworld. In Jones, C. (Ed.), A Dynamic Reimagining of American Mythology: Western Archetypes in a 21st Century Context. Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield (forthcoming).

• Collins, C. (2023). “Water Berth: My Journey to the Black Pacific as a Site of Memory and Futurity.” Public: A Journal of Imagining America, 7(1). Spring 2023 https://public.imaginingamerica.org/blog/article/water-berth-charting-my-journey-to-the-black-pacific/

• Anderson, P.; Aushana, C.; & Collins, C. (2022). When we are in crisis: Youth-centered transitional justice, police violence, and political imaginaries. International Journal of Transitional Justice. Spring 2022 Special Issue. https://academic.oup.com/ijtj/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/ijtj/ijab034/6548070?redirectedFrom=fulltext

• Collins, C. (2022). “When Do You Stop Arriving?: The Project ‘We Are Not Strangers Here: African American Histories in Rural California’,” California History (UC Press). Issue 99.4. Winter 2022. https://online.ucpress.edu/ch/article-abstract/99/4/51/194144/When-Do-You-Stop-Arriving-The-Project-We-Are-Not?redirectedFrom=fulltext

• Collins, C. (2022). “Hidden Roots: The Erasing of Afro-Latina/os and African Americans From the California Origin Story.” In Oliver, M. (Ed.), Voices of the Golden Ghosts. The Prolific Group.

• Bang, M.; Booker, A.; Collins, C.; Halle-Erby, K.; Marin, A.; McDaid-Morgan, N.; & Ng, M. (2020). Deepening perceptions of learning: Studying and designing ethical practice with researchers, teachers and learners. Proceedings of the International Society of the Learning Sciences, USA, https://45.55.127.102/handle/1/6669 

• Collins, C. I. (2019). Manifest Re-destined: The Politics of Remembering and Forgetting in the American West [Ph.D., University of California, San Diego]. https://search.proquest.com/docview/2278078993/abstract/23409082032547F6PQ/1

• Collins, C. (2016). NGOs and educational partnerships in the USA. In Symaco, L. P. (Ed.). (2016). Education and NGOs (p. 194). Bloomsbury.

• Collins, C. (Spring 2014).  A selection of Lorca. In Exchanges: A Journal of Literary Translation. University of Iowa.

• Collins, C. (July 2012).  Dream interrupted. In the African-American Experience Collection. The Whistling Fire.  

• Collins, C., Vásquez, O. A., Bliesner, J. (2011).  Bridging the gaps:  Community - university partnerships as a new form of social policy.  In Bowdon, M. & Carpenter. R. (Eds.), Higher Education, Emerging Technologies, Community Partnerships: Concepts, Models, and Applications, IGI Global.

NON REFEREED PUBLICATIONS / FEATURED RESEARCH IN PUBLIC FACING MEDIA

• Collins, C. (February 2023). Invited Q&A, UC Press Blog. Q&A for “When Do You Stop Arriving?: African American Histories in Rural California.” UC Press. https://www.ucpress.edu/blog/61499/when-do-you-stop-arriving-african-american-histories-in-rural-california/ 

• Collins, C. (February 2023). Invited Contribution to the Washington Post’s Made By History, Black Western Conversation Series sponsored by the Clara Luper Department of African & African American Studies at the University of Oklahoma. “Black Americans Have Deep Ties to the Pacific — But They’ve Been Erased.” Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2023/02/08/black-pacific-ocean/ 

• Collins, C. (November 2022). The Racial Politics of Water Crises in the American West. Invited Contribution to Fall 2022 Newsletter for National Conference of Black Political Scientists.

• Collins, C. (submitted) The Power of Embodied Activity in an Age of Impact Factor: A Biography of Master Storyteller, Folklorist, and Vocal Artist Victoria Burnett, M.Ed. In Willoughby-Herard, T. (Ed.), Scandal In Real Time: The State of Scholarship on Black Women in Politics.

SELECTED MEDIA PRODUCTION 

• Collins, C. (Director, Executive Producer). (In pre-production). Black Pacific Title TBD. [Short documentary].

• Collins, C. (Co-Producer and Co-Designer). (2023).  Re-seeding: Stewarding Stories from New Generations of California Indigenous people. [ESRI Story Map] for Cal Ag Roots. California Institute of Rural Studies. Co-produced by Storytellers Darlene Franco (Wukchumni), Yaynicut Franco (Wukchumni), Sammy Gensaw, III (Yurok Native), and Dr. Stan Rodriguez (Santa Ysabel Band of the Iipay Nation); and Project Advisor A-dae Romero-Briones, Director of Programs–Native Agriculture and Food Systems, First Nations Development Institute. Co-designed and edited by Li Schmidt.

• Collins, C. (Host, Writer, Producer). (June 7, 2022). A Contemporary Harvest: Oakland’s Acta Non Verba Youth Urban Farm Project (Seeds of Change: The African American Roots of Food Justice in California 3). [Audio podcast episode] In Cal Ag Roots. California Institute of Rural Studies. Audio engineering by Li Schmidt.

• Collins, C. (Host, Writer, Producer). (May 24, 2022). To Free Ourselves We Must Feed Ourselves: The Hidden Legacy of the Black Panther Free Breakfast Program in California. (Seeds of Change: The African American Roots of Food Justice in California 2). [Audio podcast episode] In Cal Ag Roots. California Institute of Rural Studies. Audio engineering by Li Schmidt.

• Collins, C. (Host, Writer, Producer). (May 10, 2022). United We Stand: Race, Religion, and the Politics of Food Justice in Black Los Angeles’s Victory Markets. (Seeds of Change: The African American Roots of Food Justice in California 1). [Audio podcast episode] In Cal Ag Roots. California Institute of Rural Studies.Audio engineering by Li Schmidt.

• Collins, C. (Host, Writer, Producer). (Mar. 16, 2021). Still here: Black farmers and agricultural stewardship in the modern age (We Are Not Strangers Here 6). [Audio podcast episode] In Cal Ag Roots. California Institute of Rural Studies https://cirsinc.org/cal-ag-roots/ Production assistance from Lucas Brady Woods. 

• Collins, C. (Host, Writer, Producer). (Mar. 9, 2021). Back to the land: Allensworth and the Black utopian dream (We Are Not Strangers Here 5). [Audio podcast episode] In Cal Ag Roots. California Institute of Rural Studies https://cirsinc.org/cal-ag-roots/  Production assistance from Lucas Brady Woods. 

• Collins, C. (Host, Writer, Producer). (Mar. 2, 2021). Independent settlements: Building Black communities in rural California (We Are Not Strangers Here 4). [Audio podcast episode] In Cal Ag Roots. California Institute of Rural Studies https://cirsinc.org/cal-ag-roots/ Production assistance from Lucas Brady Woods. 

• Collins, C. (Host, Writer, Producer). (Feb. 23, 2021). Cultivating change: African American homesteaders, innovators, and civic leaders (We Are Not Strangers Here 3). [Audio podcast episode] In Cal Ag Roots. California Institute of Rural Studies https://cirsinc.org/cal-ag-roots/  Production assistance from Lucas Brady Woods. 

• Collins, C. (Host, Writer, Producer). (Feb 16, 2021).  Hidden roots: Uncovering the legacies of African American homesteaders in California (We Are Not Strangers Here 2). [Audio podcast episode] In Cal Ag Roots. California Institute of Rural Studies https://cirsinc.org/cal-ag-roots/  Production assistance from Lucas Brady Woods. 

• Collins, C. (Host, Writer, Producer). (Feb 9,  2021). Freedom chasers: Early Black settlers and the California dream (We Are Not Strangers Here 1). [Audio podcast episode] In Cal Ag Roots. California Institute of Rural Studies https://cirsinc.org/cal-ag-roots/  Production assistance from Lucas Brady Woods. 

  • Selected Course Syllabi Assigning Various We Are Not Strangers Here Episodes:

    • UC San Diego:  Communication 110M (Communication in the Community); Environmental Studies 140 (Wilderness and Human Values)

    • UC Davis: American Studies 101 (Special Topics); African & African American Studies 53 (Black California)

  • Academic Manuscripts Citing We Are Not Strangers Here:

    • Harrison, M. (in-progress). Black valley: the world African Americans made in California's great Central Valley.

• Davis, Z. (Director). Collins, C. (Assistant Director & Co-Producer). (In-progress). Exalted and exhumed! Independent short film. USA. 

• Collins, C. (Executive Producer). (2016). Native like water: We’re still here. Independent short film. USA. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7075432/ 

• Collins, C. (2012).  Hype (Screenplay).  Reg. Number: 1596559, Writers Guild of America, West.

SELECTED PRESENTATIONS 

• (2024) The Joy of Representation in Digital Humanities and Archives. Roundtable Organizer: Dr. Gabriela Baeza Ventura, member of the MLA Executive Committee on Digital Humanities. Modern Language Association. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. January 4–7, 2023. 

• (2023) “The Shifting Winds of Race: Racial Construction in the Eastern Black Pacific, 1502–1945.” Panel: Across Many Pacifics: Black, Chinese, and Indigenous Histories in Pacific Worlds. Western History Association. Westin Bonaventure. Los Angeles, California. October 26–29, 2023. 

• (2022) “Digital Remittances: The Making of the Black and Brown California Esri StoryMap.” US Latino Digital Humanities / Mellon Foundation Showcase. University of Houston. Houston, Texas (via Zoom). September 8, 2022.

• (2022) “View From the West: The Public (Re)Making of Race in California Across Multiple Colonialisms.” Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association (PCB-AHA) Annual Conference, Portland State University. Portland, Oregon. August 10-12, 2022.

• (2022) “Visualizing Repatriation: Diasporic Appropriation and Appreciation in Beyoncé and Shatta Wale’s ‘Already’ Music Video.” Console-ing Passions, Feminist Media Studies. Panel titled: “Don’t Look Too Closely: Appropriation, Incorporation and Repatriation in Popular Media.” University of Central Florida. Orlando, Florida. June 23-25, 2022.

• (2022) Invited Co-Panelist with Dr. K. Wayne Yang (Provost, Muir College, UC San Diego), “Monuments to the Future: Reimagining Black and Indigenous Futures in American Public Aesthetics.” Art in Context: Identity, Ethics, and Insight. Philadelphia Museum of Art. May 18, 2022 (via Zoom).

• (2022) Invited Speaker, “The Making of the We Are Not Strangers Here Public History Project.” Society of California Pioneers. San Francisco, California. May 12, 2022.

• (2022) Invited Panelist, “Designing Community-University Partnerships in the Black Pacific Project.” Democracy Lab Symposium, UC San Diego. La Jolla, California. April 29, 2022.

• (2022) “(Re)Constructing Conquest: The Erasure of Black and Indigenous Ontologies in San Diego Public Memory.” Joint Conference of the John Dewey Society and the Latin American Philosophy of Education Society. Border Justice and InterAmerican Cooperation. Centro Cultural de la Raza. San Diego, California. April 20-21, 2022.

• (2022) “Black and Brown California: Raciality, Colonialisms, and Identity in Alta California 1542 – 1849.” Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage Conference 2022. La Politiquera: Recovering Politics/Recovering Political Voices. University of Houston. Houston, Texas (via Zoom). April 9, 2022. **could not present due to illness**

• (2022) Invited Panelist, “We Are Not Strangers Here.” California Humanities. Tools of the Trade Series. Working With Humanities Advisors: Who, What, and Why. February 17, 2022 (via Zoom).

  (2021) “African American histories in rural California.” UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (SAREP), Land Justice/Racial Equity Conference. University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Davis, California (via Zoom). November 19, 2021.

• (2021) Invited Speaker, “(Re)Storying California’s Black Historical Past.” Black Progressive Summit. October 28, 2021 (via Zoom and Fresno, California).

• (2020) “Deepening perceptions of learning: Studying and designing ethical practice with researchers, teachers and learners,” (with Megan Bang, Northwestern University; Angela Booker, UC San Diego; Kyle Halle-Erby, UCLA; Amanda Marin, UCLA; Nikki McDaid-Morgan, Northwestern University; and Meixi Ng, University of Washington) International Society of the Learning Sciences (ICLS), Nashville, Tennessee, June 19-23, 2020. (Held digitally due to COVID-19). https://repository.isls.org/bitstream/1/6669/1/430-437.pdf

• Invited Panelist, “The Power of Re-Storying Rural CA: The Making of the We Are Not Strangers Here Exhibit and Podcast.” Rural Justice Summit. UC Merced, 13 - 14, March 2020. (Postponed due to COVID-19)

• Invited Panelist, “Storying Change in the Public Imagination.” UCSD Changemaker Week. UC San Diego, 21 January 2020.

• Invited Speaker, “(Re)Imagining the West: California’s Railroads and the National Imagination,” an after-show moderated conversation for The Coast Starlight production, La Jolla Playhouse Discovery Sunday Speaker Series, La Jolla, CA 8 September 2019.

• Invited Co-Panelist, “Pursuing Equity in Action: Attempting To Make Democracy Material in Daily Life,” UC Links Conference, UC Berkeley, 16 March 2018.

• Interactive Media Performance, ESCorp Game Room Demo (Gaming as Mediation), Embodied Storytelling Collective, UC San Diego Sixth College Culture, Art, & Technology Lab, 7 March 2018.

• Screening & Panel, Native Like Water: We're Still Here, San Diego Digital Gym, San Diego 2018 Film Week, 4 March 2018.

• Invited Workshop Facilitator, “Negotiating the Ethos of University-Community Collaborative Filmmaking” 17th Annual Imagining America Conference, UC Davis, 14 October 2017. **Had to cancel travel due to wildfires**

• Invited Conference Panelist, “Partners for Life: Negotiating Equity in University-Community Collaborations.” UC Links, UC Berkeley, 10-11 March 2017.

• Invited Conference Speaker, “New Media Communication for Community Wellness,” UCSD Frontiers of Innovation Scholars Program Symposium, 16 November 2016.

• Guest Lecturer, COMM 190: Black Lives Matter: Race, Technoscience, & the Human; Lecture Title: “Memory, Movement, & Mediated Practices: Examining the Mediated Interstices Between Cultural Memory, Space, & Identity.”  UC San Diego, 26 July 2016.

• Graduate Research Fellow, Oral History Training and Oral History Collection of scholar and artist Victoria Burnett, UC Irvine, Irvine, CA, 24 April 2016 & 11-14 May 2016.

• Invited Conference Presenter, “The Syntax of Survival: Biopolitics Of An Oral Practice of Parents of Black American Children,” 29th Annual Society for Literature Science and the Arts (SLSA) Conference 2015, “After Biopolitics” Rice University, Houston TX, 12 November 2015.

• Invited Speaker, “Forging University/Community Partnerships: InterTribal Youth and UC San Diego,” UC San Diego, Vice-Chancellor’s Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Luncheon and Symposium.  9 September 2015. 

• Guest Lecturer, “Collaboratively Learning English In a Non-English Context: Uno Desarrollo Clase en Ingles,” at the Universidad de los Llanos, Villavicencio, Colombia.  19 August 2014.

• Co-Presenter, “LCM Infrastructure of Change,” UC San Diego / Unillanos Conferencia at Universidad de los Llanos, Villavicencio, Colombia (Auditorio Jamie Garzón).  14 August 2014.

• Presenter, “La Clase Mágica: The View From the Practicum,” for the CIER Mission Seminar, UCSD, CA.  May 2014. 

• Co-Presenter, “Assessment and Practice: Links Between Pedagogy & Assessment,” with Dr. Olga Vásquez, UC Links Annual Conference, Berkeley, CA.  March 2014.

• Selected Pilot Workshop Participant, UCSD/Calit2/Qualcomm “‘Flipping the Classroom’: Building Effective Online and Blended Learning Environments Summer Workshop,” UCSD, La Jolla, CA.  July – August 2013.

• Co-Presenter, “21st Century Literacies: New Ways of Knowing For A World In Motion,” UC Links Annual Conference, Berkeley, CA.  April 2013.

• Presenter, “Literature and The Other.”  Graduate Lecture at the University of California, Riverside, Palm Desert, (June 2011).

AWARDS, GRANTS, AND FELLOWSHIPS

External Awards, Grants, & Fellowships

• (2022-2024) National Endowment for the Humanities, Public Humanities Project Grant

• (2022-2024) California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Humanities for All Grant

• (2022-2024) UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship

• (2022-2023) ACLS Emerging Voices Postdoctoral Fellowship (Cornell University and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) **declined**

• (2021-2022) Andrew W. Mellon / U.S. Latino Digital Humanities (USLDH) Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Heritage Grant 

• (2021-2022) Cathryn P. Gamble Postdoctoral Fellowship (Funded by Bylo Chacon for Breathable Streets) 

• (2018) Best Student Documentary Short Nomination (Native Like Water: We're Still Here), 2018 San Diego Film Awards

• (2016-2017) Qualcomm / Alliance For Empowerment Graduate Scholarship 

Internal Awards, Grants, & Fellowships

• (2021- 2022) Democracy Lab Research Funds

• (2020-2021; 2019-2020) UC San Diego Non-Senate Faculty Professional Development Grant (could not use 2020-2021 as Conference Travel was suspended due to COVID-19)

• (2020) Departmental Nomination for UC San Diego Chancellor’s Dissertation Medal

• (2018 - 2019) Herbert I. Schiller Dissertation Year Fellowship 

• (2017-2018) UCSD Sixth College Culture, Art, and Technology Office-Spaced Fellow/Artist-in-Residence 

• UCSD Frontiers of Innovation Scholars Program: (2016-2017) Memory, Migration, & Media Project; (2016-2017) to join UCSD Community Wellness Project; (2015-2016) to join UCSD Laboratory for Human Cognition Oral History Project

•  (2016-2017) Frieda Daum Urey Endowed Fellowship

• Travel Grants: (2016) UC Consortium for Black Studies in California Travel Grant; (2015 - 2018) UCSD Department of Communication Travel Grant; (2015 – 2018); UCSD Department of Communication Summer Research Fellowship

• (2015 – 2017) Joseph Naiman Graduate Fellowship

• (2014 – 2016) Co-Investigator and Co-Recipient, Innovation Grant, UCSD Vice Chancellor’s Office on Equity, Diversity & Inclusion

• (2014 - 2015) UCSD Department of Communication First Year Doctoral Fellowship

• Professional: UCSD Panhellenic Association Outstanding Teaching Award

Undergraduate Awards: National Children’s Defense Fund Fellow; UCLA CBOP Fellow; UCLA Stephen’s House Scholarship; National Collegiate Honor Society; Alpha Lambda Delta Collegiate Honor Society; BAME Renaissance Scholarship; Henry Williams Scholarship