Personally Speaking
The Personally Speaking series was created to share the research accomplishments of faculty in the College of Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences with the greater Charlotte community. Four times a year, alumni, community partners, faculty, staff, students, and members of the general public come together to celebrate recently published work and to engage in conversation about a wide range of topics from within our disciplines. During the presentation, you will hear the speaker’s personal motivations for pursuing the research and have the opportunity to ask questions or share your point of view.
Presentations will be held on Wednesdays and are hosted by the College of Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences and held in the Halton Reading Room in the J. Murrey Atkins Library at 5:15 p.m., with a light reception beginning at 4:15 p.m.
2026-2027 Schedule
Congratulations to the faculty, who were selected by their peers to be featured during the 2026-2027 Season!
Sept. 23, 2026
“The Documented Child: Migration, Personhood, and Citizenship in 21st Century U.S. Latinx Children’s Literature”
By Maya Socolovsky, Ph.D.
“The Documented Child” shows how selected Latinx works of literature, written during a time of increased public surveillance and border security, respond to conceptualizations of citizenship and personhood through the figure of the undocumented migrant child. It raises compelling questions about the nation’s contradictory narratives surrounding migrant child bodies as criminal and disposable, yet also innately valuable and symbolically important for the future.
Oct. 28, 2026
“Net Values: Environmental Economic, and Social Entanglements in the Gulf of California”
By Nicole Peterson, Ph.D.
Anchored by more than twenty years of research, Net Values provides insight into the fishing community of Loreto and reveals an important role in decision-making that diverges from previous studies. Peterson answers questions such as “why do the fishermen fish?” or “what is the marine park staff doing?” These decisions and choices are related to the larger implication addressed by this book: that in order to make effective policies around natural resource management and other issues, we must understand how those potential policies interact with the context of decision-making, including past decisions and unquestioned assumptions.
Feb. 17, 2027
“Volunteer Management: A Strategic Approach”
By Jaclyn S. Piatak, Ph.D.
Volunteers play a critical role in serving communities and delivering public services. Volunteers serve across many areas — in schools, human service organizations, emergency services, and more. Taking a strategic approach, this book provides an overview of volunteer management from planning and recruitment to engagement and evaluation, considering both organizational and volunteer needs and capacity. We develop a strategic volunteer management approach for volunteering to benefit not only the organizations and communities served, but also volunteers and society more broadly.
Mar. 24, 2027
“AI in the Workplace”
By Camille Endacott, Ph.D.
With AI tools now integrated into everything from hiring systems and team collaboration platforms to strategic decision-making processes, there’s a pressing need to move beyond either fear or hype. AI in the Workplace explores how artificial intelligence is reshaping organizational life, often in ways that are subtle yet deeply consequential. This book answers that need by providing an accessible, critical, and often humorous guide for understanding what AI is, how it works, and what it means for the ways we work and interact in professional settings.
Questions about the series? Reach us at chess-events@charlotte.edu.