Victoria Moten

Victoria is a Professional Track faculty member at the University of Maryland, Department of English. She is a doctoral student in the English Department at Howard University with a major focus in African American Literature and a minor focus in Women’s Studies. She received her M.A. in Language in Literature at Clark Atlanta University completing her thesis on the works of James Baldwin. Victoria’s research interests lie in the speculative fiction works of Black women writers, from Hurston to Butler, and what their prose presents about the importance of the human connection to nature–particularly the connection to place. She’s presented on panels at the National Council for Black Studies, College English Association, and the American University in Paris James Baldwin Conference on this subject. Her writing on this subject can be found in Introduction to Afrofuturism: A Mixtape in Black Literature & Arts (Routledge 2024). A Hurston/Wright Fellow, her creative writing ranges from poetry to short fiction; from biographical to speculative, and can be found in the Obsidian, Maryland Bards Poetry Review and Black Freighter Press. Victoria teaches Black Diaspora Literature and Culture (CMLT235) and Academic Writing (ENGL101) at the University of Maryland. She has also served as senior researcher for Buried Blueprints of Black Education: Reconstruction to Deconstruction through Digital Storytelling, NEH Humanities Initiatives for HBCUs well as a content developer, North Star Outreach Program, Smithsonian Institute National Museum of African American History & Culture. Her areas of interest include 20th Century African American Literature, Black Diaspora Literature, Women’s Studies, and creative writing.