I am an Assistant Professor of Broadcast Media at North Carolina Central University (NCCU) and an Instructor of Digital Media Technology at Johnston Community College. I earned my PhD in Communication, Rhetoric and Digital Media at NC State University. My work explores the intersections of media-making, technology, race, and gender. In my research, I am primarily concerned with empowering Black women’s knowledges and ways of being in relation to technology and digital media1. My first experiences with media and technology included learning to bake, sew, and crochet from my aunts, and my mother teaching me how to draw and braid. Through my mother and other women in my family, I began my journey as a Black feminist maker, using my hands to generate algorithms imbued with ancestral knowledge and care. Computers are another technology I grew to love as a child, learning basic code to curate a space on digital platforms like MySpace and Tumblr. In addition to reading and listening to music, curating my sneaker collection is one of my favorite pastimes and also informs my work as a student, teacher, designer, photographer, video editor, and all-around creative.
1. Angela M. Haas, “Wampum as Hypertext: An American Indian Intellectual Tradition of Multimedia Theory and Practice,” Studies in American Indian Literatures 19, no. 4 (Winter 2017): 77-100, https://doi.org/10.1353/ail.2008.0005.
Media Diary
What I’m listening to:
What I’m working on:
Media
- Libraries hosts Femme-focused nights on making, gaming, and beat-making. Focus Magazine, Spring 2024.
- CHASS Announces 2023 Wellness and Belonging Mini-Grant Winners. NCSU Humanities and Social Sciences News, December 2023.
- NC State Envisions Urban Futures. NCSU Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost News, November 2023.
- Femme Beat-Making Nights return to the libraries Aug. 31. NCSU Libraries, August 2023.
- NC State’s Marginalia Making creates safe space for sneakerheads. Technician, April 2023.
- The Black Research Symposium explores storytelling across the African diaspora. EdNC, April 2023.
- A Femme-Safe Place. The Nubian Message, February 2023.
Publications
Smutherman, M. (2025). Braiding the Atlas: Black Feminist Cartography and Extensions of Care in Crooklyn’s Story Maps. JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, 64(4), 124-140.
Smutherman, M. & Wesley, D. (2024). Digitized: The visual rhetoric of Black feminist storytellers on Instagram. In S. K. Haydel & D. Stamps (Eds.), Black Identities & Media. LSU Press. (Forthcoming)
Wesley, D., Pandya, M., & Smutherman, M. (2024). (Re)Imagining communication in a digital world. In Hummel, G. (Ed.), Perspectives on Communication. Kendall Hunt. (Forthcoming)
Smutherman, M. (2022). The ethics of online memes. In J. Lipschultz (Ed.), Social Media Law and Ethics (pp. 56-61). Routledge.
Presentations
Groth, Jason E. & Smutherman, M. (2024, November). Story Problems: Training and Inspiring Student Workers through Creative Media Making Challenges. Association of Creative Technologies in Academic Libraries (ACTAL) Conference: Arlington, TX.
Fontaine, L., Hewett, C., & Smutherman, M. (2024, March). Femme Space: Nurturing Safe Exploration in Gaming, Making, and Digital Media for Femme Identities. NC Live Conference: Wilmington, NC.
“A Black History of Femme Beatmaking: Reflections on Doing Black Digital Humanities,” Digital Humanities Institute (2024)
“Engaging in Marginalia Making,” Design Forge (2024)
“Reimagining the Digital World: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” NCA Convention (2023)
“Graduate Assistants in Creative Technology Spaces,” ACTAL Conference (2023)
“Black Feminist Ecologies and Materialisms,” Black Women’s Studies Association Symposium (2023)
“Building Beloved Community in College Classrooms,” Dissident Feminisms: Inaugural bell hooks Symposium (2023)
“Marginalia Making: Critical Care as Critical Making Workshop Series at NCSU,” HASTAC Conference (2023)
“Amplifying Voices of Black Communities: The Power of Storytelling,” Black Research Symposium (2023)
“Developing Digital Media Assignments for Hybrid Learning: Perspectives and Approaches from an Instructor and Student,” ACTAL Conference (2022)
“Subverting the Algorithm: The Digital Activism of Black Twitter,” Computers and Writing Conference (2022)
“Decolonizing the Literate Subject: A Genealogy of Black Multiliteracies,” NCSU Graduate Research Symposium (2022)
“Embracing Diverse Ways of Being and Knowing,” CRDM Symposium (2022)
“Multimodality in the HBCU Writing Center: Communicating for the Future,” CCCC (2022)
“For Us by Us: The Cultural Uniqueness of Writing Centers at HBCUs,” Southeastern Writing Center Association Conference (2022)
“Integrating Digital and Mobile Learning Strategies into HBCU College Courses,” The Learning Revolution Emergency Home Learning Summit (November 2020)
Commissions
2023 – North Carolina State University, Envisioning the Future of Charlotte Through the Past and Present, digital collage, Raleigh, NC
Workshops and Exhibitions
2024-2025 – Canva Design Basics (Introductory, Intermediate, Advanced) Workshops, Wake County Parks and Recreation (Flaherty Park Rec Center)
2024 – Black History Month Femme Beat-Making Showcase and Workshop, North Carolina State University Libraries
2023 – Marginalia Making Sneakertag Workshop, North Carolina State University
2023 – Digital Scrapbooking and Afropresentism, NCSU African American Cultural Center Black Research Symposium
maurika smutherman 