Teigha Mae VanHester

Teigha Mae VanHester (she/they), also known as Dr. V, is an Assistant Professor of Race, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Butler University. As a community-based scholar-activist, they focus on sovereignty as a literacy and human right, emphasizing joy, rest, creativity, and pleasure as liberation strategies through Black Indigenous femme intellectual ancestry, cultural rhetoric, and grassroots activism.

Their research intersects

• Black feminist thought
• Pleasure activism
• Critical race theory
• Indigenous knowledge systems
• Ecological critique

Scientific awards and fellowships include

• Coalition for Community Writing Emerging Scholars Award
• CCCC Scholars for the Dream Travel Award
• NAFSA RISE Fellow
• Indiana Humanities Wilma Gibbs Fellow
• First Forum Editorial Fellow

VanHester has served as a peer reviewer for the journal *Emerging Voices in Education* and has presented at major conferences including the Cultural Rhetoric Conference, Conference for College Composition and Communication, and National Women’s Studies Association Conference.