ATLANTA—The College of the Arts is pleased to announce that Dr. Deanna Joseph, Associate Professor and Director of Choral Activities from the School of Music and Dr. Alessandra Raengo, Associate Professor from the School of Film, Media & Theatre are recipients of the two 2021 Outstanding Faculty Achievement Awards, awarded by the Office of Faculty Affairs.
This award recognizes faculty members for their outstanding achievements across all three areas of scholarship, teaching and service. These faculty perform above and beyond expectation with a record of exemplary scholarly achievement, ongoing excellence in instructional accomplishment, and contributions in service to Georgia State University, the discipline, and/or the community.
“It has been exciting to watch both Dr. Joseph and Dr. Raengo reach new heights in terms of their accomplishments,” said Dean Wade Weast of the College of the Arts. “I am always thrilled when our faculty receive university-wide awards, because it confirms what we have known all along – that College of the Arts faculty are among the best at Georgia State.”
Deanna Joseph, Associate Professor and Director of Choral Activities, School of Music
Dr. Joseph, a GRAMMY Award nominee in the Music Educator category, is an established national leader in her field, and her exemplary contributions to the Georgia State School of Music have already earned her an Alumni Distinguished Professorship, awarded in 2018. She provides first-rate experiences for her students that have resulted in numerous invitations to perform locally with nationally recognized artists such as Andrea Bocelli, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Atlanta Ballet and the Atlanta Opera. Recently, Dr. Joseph led the Georgia State University Singers to a first prize win at the 2017 International Chamber Choir Competition Marktoberdorf in Marktoberdorf, Germany – an internationally significant choir competition.
“I am elated by this significant recognition for the incredible work being done by Dr. Joseph,” said School of Music Director, Dr. Nickitas Demos. “From her recent first-prize award at a major international conference to bringing Pulitzer Prize-winning composers and GRAMMY Award-winning guest artists to our campus, Dr. Joseph’s creative achievements have elevated her within the field, greatly benefited our students and reflected very well upon the School of Music and College of the Arts. This recognition is richly deserved!
Dr. Alessandra Raengo, Associate Professor, School of Film, Media & Theatre
Dr. Raengo is a theorist of black aesthetics and visual culture, working at the intersection of Black Studies, Visual Culture Studies, Film Studies, Art History, and Aesthetic Theory. She is the author of “On the Sleeve of the Visual: Race as Face Value” (Dartmouth, 2013) and “Critical Race Theory and Bamboozled” (Bloomsbury, 2016) and numerous articles and book chapters on Black cinema, the Black visual arts, and Critical Race Theory. Dr. Raengo is the Founding Editor in Chief of the liquid blackness: journal of aesthetics and black studies, recently acquired by Duke University Press, a journal entirely devoted to the intersection between Black Studies and aesthetic theory she initially founded with her graduate students here at GSU. The Duke UP journal is an outgrowth of the liquid blackness group she founded in 2013 in the Moving Images Studies doctoral program, which is devoted to the study of the radical aesthetic possibilities of the visual and sonic arts of the Black diaspora. Under her leadership, “liquid blackness” developed into a multi-pronged project: a theoretical concept, a methodology, a pedagogy, an archival project, a digital humanities initiative archived at the Library of Congress, a curatorial practice, and a praxis of community-building. Most recently, Dr. Raengo has been one of the driving forces behind AMPLIFY, a showcase for film students’ work that seeks to foster artistic and critical dialog around systemic anti-blackness.
According to Dr. Greg Smith, Director of the School of Film, Media & Theatre, “Alessandra Raengo is a model interdisciplinary scholar, a superb teacher and mentor, and a tireless worker in service to the university and the profession. The School of Film, Media & Theatre is delighted to see her multiple achievements recognized.”