- Associate Director, Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research
- Instructional Associate Professor
- Phone: 979-845-7151
- Email: jessicaray@tamu.edu
- Office: Melbern G. Glasscock Building, 310D
- Document: CV
- Public History
- U.S. in the World
Research Interests
Jessica Erin Ray, an Instructional Associate Professor of History, joined Texas A&M University in 2020. She teaches about and researches US cultural history, specifically popular culture and dance. Drawing on her experience performing, choreographing, and teaching dance, she explores how embodied practices simultaneously reveal long-established cultural traditions and hold the potential for immediate change. Recent work includes "Voice from the Wings: Ann Barzel and Twentieth Century Dance Writing" (2022) and a chapter and case study in Dance in US Popular Culture (Routledge, 2023). Forthcoming publications include: “Movement on the Midway: Legacies of Dance at Chicago's 1893 World's Fair" and “Democratic Domesticity: Dance in Chicago Settlement Houses, 1889 to 1939” for Dancing on the Third Coast: Chicago Dance Histories (University of Illinois Press), and “Flipped/Hybrid and Flexible: Student Success and Redesigning the U.S. History Survey at Texas A&M University” (The History Teacher). In January 2023, Ray joined the Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research as its Associate Director, where she manages undergraduate humanities research initiatives. Beyond Texas A&M, she acts as an artistic advisor to Houston-based Social Movement Contemporary Dance Theater.
Areas of Speciality
- 20th Century US
- US Popular Culture
- Dance