
Anthropology Major Receives National Award for Photography
Sherley Arias-Pimentel, a University of Richmond senior from Newark, New Jersey, has been awarded the Joy of Giving Something Fellowship through Imagining America. The fellowship is awarded to eight undergraduate students across the U.S. who are interested in photography and digital media as future careers and hope to make a difference in their communities.
Arias-Pimentel, a double major in anthropology and global studies, has been passionate about photography and social justice since she began taking photos in middle school.
In the fall of 2021, Arias-Pimentel traveled to Ghana to study globalization and cultural legacies and returned to campus to create an art exhibition of her photography from her time there with support from the Bonner Center for Civic Engagement. She is currently showing another art exhibition in collaboration with fellow student Julia Brittain, titled “At the Intersection of Contagion and Connection: HIV/AIDS and Richmond’s LGBTQ+ Communities” in the Carole Weinstein International Center.
Sherley Arias-Pimentel, a University of Richmond senior from Newark, New Jersey, has been awarded the Joy of Giving Something Fellowship through Imagining America. The fellowship is awarded to eight undergraduate students across the U.S. who are interested in photography and digital media as future careers and hope to make a difference in their communities.
Arias-Pimentel, a double major in anthropology and global studies, has been passionate about photography and social justice since she began taking photos in middle school.
In the fall of 2021, Arias-Pimentel traveled to Ghana to study globalization and cultural legacies and returned to campus to create an art exhibition of her photography from her time there with support from the Bonner Center for Civic Engagement. She is currently showing another art exhibition in collaboration with fellow student Julia Brittain, titled “At the Intersection of Contagion and Connection: HIV/AIDS and Richmond’s LGBTQ+ Communities” in the Carole Weinstein International Center.
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Faculty Highlights

Rania Kassab Sweis, associate professor of anthropology, has been selected as the winner of the 2022 Book Prize from the Association for Middle East Childhood and Youth Studies. (AMECYS) for her book Paradoxes of Care Children and Global Medical Aid in Egypt. The AMECYS Book Award was established in 2019 to recognize an outstanding contribution on the study of children and youth in the Middle East, North Africa and their diasporic communities. Learn more.
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Jeffrey Hass, associate professor of sociology, was named a 2022 recipient of the University’s Distinguished Scholarship Award at the annual Colloquy celebration.
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Jeffrey Hass, associate professor of sociology and chair of the Department of Sociology & Anthropology, has been selected as a co-winner of the American Sociological Association Section on Peace, War and Social Conflict’s 2022 Book Award and received honorable mention for ASA Distinguished Scholarly Book Award for his book Wartime Suffering and Survival.
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Jan French, associate professor of anthropology and pre-law advisor, published “Ethnography In-Sight: Spiraling through Fieldwork” and “Paint It Black or Red: Serious Play in Brazil’s Northeast” in The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology.
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Rania Kassab Sweis, associate professor of anthropology, recent book Paradoxes of Care Children and Global Medical Aid in Egypt has been reviewed in the May/June 2022 issue of Foreign Affairs.
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Rania Kassab Sweis, associate professor of anthropology, has been invited to speak on her book, Paradoxes of Care: Children and Global Medical Aid in Egypt at two events: University of Minnesota International Relations Colloquium, Department of Political Science and the Association of Middle East Children and Youth Studies Digital Author Series.
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Matthew Oware, Irving May Professor of Human Relations and chair of the Department of Sociology & Anthropology published "Text mining and the examination of language used to report child maltreatment: How language impacts child welfare intake reports,” in the Children and Youth Services Review.
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Rania Kassab Sweis, associate professor of anthropology, published Paradoxes of Care: Children and the Politics of Medical Humanitarianism in Egypt through Stanford University Press.
View BioScholarship Repository Readership
The University of Richmond's Scholarship Repository shares faculty publications with a world-wide audience. The map below shows where articles from sociology and anthropology faculty are being read around the globe.
Sociology Library Research Guide
Anthropology Library Research Guide
Anthropology Writing Guide
Center for Civic Engagement
Mailing Address:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
302 Weinstein Hall
231 Richmond Way
University of Richmond, VA 23173
Phone: (804) 289-8067
Fax: (804) 287-1278
Department Chair: Dr. Jeffrey Hass
Administrative Coordinator: Diane Zotti