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News

  • FORTHCOMING: 'Modernity, coloniality and the womanist handicraft of Kamaladevi Chattopadyay: immersive learning at India’s Golden Triangle'. Indian Religious Traditions in Context, An ASIANetwork Faculty Development Institute / AIACHE Symposium. St. Stephen’s College, Jesus and Mary College, Delhi, India, 5–7 January 2027. 

  • FORTHCOMING: 'Womanism, feminism, and the British positivist modern/colonial gender system: reparatory storytelling as cultural heritage'. Midwest Conference on British Studies. Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, 25–6 September 2026.

  • Review Editor for Environmental History Now. A multi-media platform that bridges academia and public interest that showcases the scholarship of  women, trans and/or nonbinary scholars.

  • 'A Look into Current Spatial Studies at Ball State: Dr. Matthew Wilson’s Critical Theories of Place Studies'. Digital Literature Review Blog. 6 April 2026.

  • Matha, Channing. 'Ball State students worry, professors explain how they handle their classrooms amid legislation enforcement'. Ball State Daily News. 28 February 2026. 

  • 'Critical Theories of Place Studies'. Big Question, Big Ideas Series, hosted by Ball State Philosophy Department. Kennedy Library, Muncie, Indiana, 12 November 2025.

  • Siti Binti Saad's 'Wala Hapana Hasara'. A song reclamation project. Zanzibar, Tanzania. 2025.

  • 'Mkono Mmoja'. Artifact #1 presentation: Creativity + Expression, a song co-created by Mariam Hamdani,  Ali Al Ibrahim, Mohammed Othman, Sharia Isa, Bola Origunwa, & Matthew Wilson. School for International Training. Stone Town, Tanzania, Jul 6 2025.

  • 'Baobab of African Knowledge'. Artifact #2 presentation on the theme of Conservation or Repurposing / Energy, an art program for an energy generating windmill made of repurposed parts, co-created by Mr. Mchau, Christopher Dier, Cristina Nichol, and Matthew Wilson. School for International Training. Dar es Salam, Tanzania, Jul 16 2025.

  • 'Majii ecologies: Human-Environment Interface of Ethnic Groups Inhabiting Tanzania’s Kilimanjaro Region'. Artifact #3 presentation on the theme Water and Education. An exemplar assignment for Humanities and Technology Studies students, co-created by Chris Dier and Matthew Wilson. School for International Training. Moshi, Tanzania, Jul 25 2025.

  • ’Maasai bomba semi-structured interview(s) with a Tanzanian homestead builder, Sarah Salune'. Artifact #4 presentation on the theme of Food and Advocacy. Interview co-created by Sarah Salune, Edward Philipo, and Matthew Wilson. School for International Training. Taraat, Tanzania, Jul 31 2025.

  • Podcast launched!

    https://rss.com/podcasts/critical-theories-of-place-studies/

  • “Big Questions, Big Ideas: critical theories of place studies” presentation. A public event at Muncie Public Library, hosted by Ball State Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Wednesday, November 12, 2025 at 5:30 PM - 6:30 PM

  • Selected to participate in the Fulbright-Hays Group Project Abroad in Tanzania with the School for International Training (SIT), ‘Tuko Pamoja: Tanzanian Creativity and Perspectives in an Era of Climate Change’, supported by a grant from the Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad (GPA), U.S. Department of Education.

  • published ‘Positivism’ in The Oxford Handbook of American and British Women Philosophers in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Lydia Moland and Alison Stone, 2025

  • co-authored with Dr. John Anderson the essay ‘Memorializing Black life and death: contemplative inquiry in interdisciplinary studies’ in Routledge Critical Companion to Race and Architecture(2025), co-edited by Felipe Hernández, Itohan Osayimwese.

  • Critical Theories of Place Studies talk, University of Calgary

  • Critical Theories of Place Studies talk, University of Kansas

  • Elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society

  • Published the edited volume Understanding Site in Design Pedagogy with Sean Burns

  • Published'A "true organ of Humanity": on the Anti-feminist Architectural Regionalism of Comtean Positivism in Victorian Britain' in  Region — Critiques: Critical Studies in Architectural Humanities Series. ed. by Simon Richards (Routledge: 2023), 11–27.

  • Inviewed about Richard Congreve, Positivist Politics, the Victorian Press, and the British Empire for the New Books Network podcast

  • Selected for National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) 'Towards a People's History of Landscape: Black & Indigenous Histories of the Nation's Capital', Washington D.C., 12 June–1 July 2022

  • Elected African American Studies Affiliate and Women's and Gender Studies program affiliated research faculty at Ball State, 2022

  • Published Richard Congreve, Positivist Politics, the Victorian Press, and the British Empire(Palgrave), 2021

  • BSU architecture library book talk

  • Took the course 'Reimagining Blackness and Architecture' by the Museum of Modern Art. Instructed by Arlette Hernandez and Sean Anderson, 2021

  • Visiting scholar at École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS)

  • Review of Moralising Space by Pauline Guillemet

  • Published Moralising Space: the Utopian Urbanism of the British Positivists, 1850–1920 (2018)