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headshot of Heidi Nicholls

Heidi Nicholls

Assistant Professor

Sociology
LT 414

Background

Heidi Nicholls (she/her) is a haole (white/settler) scholar and sociologist of race and U.S. empire. Her research analyzes race through the material and cultural processes of empire, claims to sovereignty, and people(s)' relationships to state power. Her first book project, Inherent Empire, demonstrates how racialization reorients politics in ways that reinforce the power of the empire-state by comparing settler uses of race in Hawai'i and Virginia. 

Nicholls received a PhD in sociology at the University of Virginia in 2022 and was a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University and a postdoctoral fellow. Her research can be found in , , and . Her current research agenda intersects with health, medicine and environmental sociology through her work analyzing the experiences of those directly impacted by the Red Hill water crisis on the island of O鈥榓hu, Hawai'i.

Select Publications

  • Nicholls, Heidi. (2022). "Antiracism amidst empire? Understanding the United States鈥 relationship to whiteness." , e13017. 
  • o Nicholls, Heidi. (2021), "Colonial and Decolonial Resignification: US Empire-state Sovereignty in Hawai'i." White, A.I.R. and King, K.Q. (Ed.), Emerald Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp. 191-220. 
  • o Nicholls, Heidi. (2023), 鈥淐itizen, Subject, Human: For a Humanist Sociology at the End of the Eurocene.鈥
  • Lee, Kristina and Heidi Nicholls. (2023), 鈥淩eflections from the CHS Mini Conference Organizers, Philadelphia 2023.鈥 T, Vol 34 No. 1 Fall 2023. 
  • Nicholls, Heidi and Matthew Ito (2020) 鈥.鈥 Religion, Race, and Democracy Lab, University of Virginia. 


Education

  • Sociology PhD, University of Virginia
  • Sociology MS, University of Virginia
  • Social Science BA, Westmont College

Research Interests

  • Settler colonial whiteness
  • U.S. empire
  • Militarism in Oceania
  • Anti-racism beyond the state
  • Indigenous and settler solidarities

Teaching Interests

  • Race and racism
  • Decolonial politics
  • Comparative-historical sociology
  • Environmental sociology
  • Health and medicine

Awards

  • NEH Institutes for Higher Education Faculty, awarded to 鈥淗ealth Humanities: Dismantling Structural Injustices in Healthcare.鈥 Johns Hopkins University (Senior Faculty), 2023
  • Department of Sociology Teaching Award. University of Virginia, 2022

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