
RESEARCH &
WRITING
As a scholar, I am interested in exploring how communities remember and alternately forget their pasts in order to meet present needs.
My research focuses on the particular objects and materials of memory, from the mundane (Christmas ornaments) to the more spectacular (monuments).
JOURNAL ARTICLES:
Maurantonio, N. (2021). “Green Life Matters”: Place and the Politics of Environmental and Commemorative Justice, Communication, Culture and Critique,. Maurantonio, N. (2018). Tarred by History: Memory, Materiality, and Protest. de arte, 53 (2-3): 51-69. Stevens, L. & Maurantonio, N. (2018). Black Twitter Asks Rachel: Racial Identity Theft in `Post-Racial’ America. Howard Journal of Communications, 29:2, 179-195. Maurantonio, N. (2017). “'Reason to Hope'?: The White Savior Myth and Progress in `Post-Racial’ America.” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 94 (4): 1130-1145. Maurantonio, N. (2015). “Material Rhetoric, Public Memory, and the Post-It Note.” Southern Communication Journal, 80 (2): 83-101. Lead Article. Maurantonio, N. (2014). “Remembering Rodney King: Myth, Racial Reconciliation, and Civil Rights History.” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 91 (4): 740-755. Maurantonio, N. (2014). “`That Photo’: Journalism and Bearing Witness to History.” Western Journal of Communication, 78 (4): 500-52 Maurantonio, N. (2014). “Archiving the Visual: The Promises and Pitfalls of Digital Newspaper Archives.” Media History, 20 (1): 88-102. Maurantonio, N. (2012). “Standing By: Police Paralysis, Race, and the 1964 Philadelphia Riots.” Journalism History, 38 (2): 110-121. Maurantonio, N. (2012). “Entangled Webs: “Forensic Facticity” and the Construction of Police Work.” The Communication Review, 15 (1): 1-20. Lead Article. Maurantonio, N. (2008). “`Justice for Daniel Faulkner’?: History, Memory, and Police Identity.” Journal of Communication Inquiry, 32 (1): 43-59.
PRESENTATIONS:
“Erasure, Monument Protest, and the Strategic Forgetting of History,” Falling Monuments, Reluctant Ruins, Johannesburg, South Africa. November 2018. “Confronting Pasts: Community Engagement and Empowerment.” With Free Egunfemi, Dom Harrington, Elizabeth Mejia-Ricart, and Irina Rogova. Annual meeting of National Humanities Alliance (NHA), New Orleans, LA. November 2018. “Confederate Memorials: Considering Ways Forward,” Wofford College, South Carolina. Invited speaker, April 2018. “Stretching Skins & Stories: Taxidermy and the Confederacy as Endangered Species.” Virginia Humanities, Charlottesville, Virginia, April 2018. “Seeing the Unseen and Telling the Untold: Institutions, Individuals, and Desegregating the University of Richmond,” Lemon Project Symposium, College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA, March 2018. “Race & Racism at the University of Richmond,” Regional Digital Humanities Conference, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, March 2018. “`Your Vote Was a Hate Crime’: Remembering the Lost Cause in 21st Century America.” Troubling Histories: Public Art and Prejudice Conference, Johannesburg, South Africa. November 2017. “Public Memory and the Private University: Untold RVA and the University of Richmond’s Race & Racism Project.” With Jordana Cox, Free Egunfemi, Elizabeth Mejia-Ricart, Jennifer Munnings, and Irina Rogova. Annual meeting of Imagining America (IA), Davis, CA. October 2017. “Black Twitter Asks Rachel: Racial Identity Theft in `Post-Racial’ America.” With Leslie Stevens. Annual meeting of the International Communication Association (ICA), San Diego, CA, May 2017. “Doing Interdisciplinary Digital Projects: Opportunities and Challenges.” Inaugural symposium on Media, Communication, and Film Studies Programs at Liberal Arts Colleges (MCFLAC), Allentown, PA, May 2016. “Campus History as Public History.” Annual meeting of the National Council for Public Humanities (NCPH), Baltimore, MD, March 2016. “Materiality, Public Memory, and the Post-It Note in the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar in Richmond, VA.” Annual meeting of the National Communication Association (NCA), Chicago, IL. November 2014. “At the Crossroads of Engagement: Intersections of Diversity and Public Scholarship.” With Glyn Hughes, Maria Avila, George Sanchez, and Amy Howard. Annual meeting of Imagining America (IA), Atlanta, GA. October 2014. “The Myth of the `Reluctant Symbol’: Rodney King and the Burden of History.” Annual meeting of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), Dublin, Ireland. June 2013. “`When It Ended There Was Only One Way to Believe’: Journalism and the Bounded Visual.” Annual meeting of the International Communication Association (ICA), Phoenix, AZ. May 2012. “Recovering the Forgotten Past: Teaching Digital Storytelling, Memory, and History.” Annual meeting of the International Communication Association (ICA), Phoenix, AZ. May 2012. “Photographic `Proof’: Police, Black Panthers, and the History of Lynching in the United States.” Annual meeting of the American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA), Kansas City, MO. October 2011. “Archiving Crisis: Texts, Context, and Narrative Challenges.” Arts & Humanities Research Council Funded Seminar, Sheffield, UK. January 2011.
“Maurantonio’s unique approach to the study of Civil War memory and her strong authorial voice make for an engaging read. She successfully incorporates the historiography of Civil War memory while condensing complex theories about memory, identity, politics, race, and place into what is ultimately an informed, entertaining, and relevant work. This book is a timely reminder that Confederate exceptionalism is not a passé philosophy that can be dismantled along with its memorials; rather, it is an active movement in the process of extending its influence.”
—Journal of Southern History







