Arts and Letters Review: Fall 2025
College of Arts and Letters
The start of the fall semester is always marked with energy and possibility. We watch the rapid transformation of the campus as students and faculty return and welcome the newest members of our community. This is my 25th fall at JMU and, while the scene is wonderfully familiar to me, it is simultaneously (and paradoxically) a mystery. How did we all get here? So many unknown stories behind this present moment.
This seventh issue of the Arts and Letters Review uncovers some of those stories and bears witness to the incredible work of our faculty, staff, and students. And while these articles represent a rich array of people, disciplines, and accomplishments, they all model that which the college has always sought to inspire: a spirit of intellectual agility, critical inquiry, and thoughtful humanity.
It is our community – our faculty, staff, students, and alumni – that makes this college a vibrant, creative, productive, and hopeful space. And in this space we can continue (as George Bernard Shaw wrote) to “...dream things that never were,” and ask, "Why not?"
— Traci Zimmerman (‘92, ‘94M), Dean of the College of Arts and Letters
A book 150 years in the making
