Mary Caton Lingold

Dr. Mary Caton Lingold is an Associate Professor of English and Director of the PhD Program in Media, Art, and Text (MATX) at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her interdisciplinary work focuses on the early modern African Atlantic world, emphasizing literature, music, sound studies, digital humanities, and the cultural history of slavery. She holds a PhD in English and African & African American Studies from Duke University (2017), an MA from the University of Colorado Boulder (2010), and a BA from Trinity University (2004).

Her research explores the intersection of sound, slavery, and digital media, with particular attention to Caribbean and North American contexts. Key projects include the book African Musicians in the Atlantic World: Legacies of Sound and Slavery (2023) and the digital initiative Musical Passage: A Voyage to 1688 Jamaica. She co-edited Digital Sound Studies (2018) and has published widely in journals like Early Music and Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture.

Lingold teaches courses on early African American literature, Caribbean studies, and sound studies. She is affiliated with VCU’s Department of African American Studies and the MATX program. Her work has been recognized with the Richard Beale Davis Prize (2017) and features in podcasts and public humanities projects.