Celebrating Jamira Richardson (GSAS ’25) – One of Three Students Awarded the 2025 Suzanne Tarlov Spirit Award

Posted in Announcement News Story  |  Tagged Alumni, Award, Department of English, News

The Center for Social Justice proudly recognizes three #HoyasForOthers with the 2025 Suzanne Tarlov Spirit Award – Jamira Richardson (G’25), Alondra Herrera-Esquivel (SFS’25), and Nicholas Voltaggio (SFS’25).

The Suzanne Tarlov Spirit Award recognizes a student who has demonstrated a strong understanding of and commitment to social justice by working behind-the-scenes to create successful CSJ programming and/or events. This award is given in honor of Suzanne Tarlov, who served as the inaugural Associate Director of the Center for Social Justice until she passed away in January 2012. Suzanne’s commitment to the Georgetown University community and CSJ’s community partners were evident in her everyday actions and the depth of her relationships.

The Center for Social Justice, in their announcement, added this:
Jamira – You’ve given your heart and head and hands for two very fully years as a graduate student to CSJ. You have been pivotal to the recreation of ASK in a post-grant/COVID world and your presence and modeling for our undergrad Hoyas has been significant!

For our part, the English Department sat down with Jamira and asked her a few questions about her time at Georgetown, her commitment to social justice, and her time in the department completing her MA in English:

1) Tell us about your MA thesis:
My thesis, entitled “Affect Unfettered: Subversions of the Strong Black Woman Schema in Speculative Liberatory Narratives,” examines subversive constructions of Black female affect in three twentieth-century narratives about slavery: Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred, and J. California Cooper’s Family. Using Afrofuturism as a supplementary framework, my thesis examines how Morrison, Butler, and Cooper challenge the validity of affective suppression as a marker of strength among Black women by presenting affective expression as a powerful tool for overcoming traumatic pasts and envisioning liberating futures.

2) What classes have you been a Teaching Assistant for, and what have you gotten out of that experience?
I have not been a Teaching Assistant during my time at Georgetown, but I have served as a Research Assistant for Dr. Angelyn Mitchell since Fall 2024, editing her forthcoming Toni Morrison biography from Polity Press. This assistantship has been an invaluable experience for me as both a scholar of African American literature and an aspiring editor, since it has enabled me to hone foundational editorial skills and develop an intimate knowledge of publishing in its early stages. 

3) What was your work like with CSJ? How did you incorporate Social Justice into your academic career at Georgetown?
From my first semester as an English M.A. student to my last, I served as the CSJ’s Justice Graduate Intern for Youth Justice Initiatives. As a JGI, I primarily provided administrative support for the After School Kids (ASK) program, which strives to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline for youth between the ages of 12 and 24 across the D.C. metropolitan area through culturally responsive mentorship and tutoring practices grounded in social justice. Within this role, I infused my passion for social justice into my academic and professional development as a graduate student by spearheading a series of community-based projects and initiatives. Among these projects and initiatives, I am especially proud of the biweekly dialogue series I designed and facilitated for a cohort of students from Girls Global Academy, a predominantly Black all-girls high school near the Capitol Campus. For this year-long dialogue series, I created a facilitation guide grounded in salient topics such as identity and intersectionality, activism and advocacy, and personal storytelling, with holistic objectives such as self-awareness, social awareness, self-advocacy, and community-building—objectives that each student not only met but exceeded by the conclusion of the dialogue series. Additionally, I am proud of the digital archive of literacy resources I created for adolescent and young adult learners as an alternative to the existing pool of literacy resources tailored to early childhood learners. When I initially began compiling resources for this archive during my first semester of graduate school, I never imagined that I would witness its implementation within actual classrooms, so I was incredibly grateful for the opportunity to witness the intersection of theory and praxis in action through this role.

4) How has your MA in English helped you in your career goals?
Prior to graduate school, I aspired to expand representation within the publishing industry as an editor for children’s and young adult books. However, my experience as a student within the English M.A. program has broadened my professional aspirations by introducing me to alternative career paths that align with my passion for diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging—from higher education to the nonprofit sphere. Additionally, I have cultivated a wide range of transferable skills through my academic, professional, and extracurricular roles as an English M.A. student, which I will confidently carry with me as I navigate the volatile job market post-graduation.

5) What do you like to read for fun?
As you might be able to tell based on the topic of my thesis, I love speculative fiction, because I believe that this expansive genre enables us to transcend the constraints of our existing world and envision a more liberatory alternative. Although I have not had many opportunities to read for pleasure during my time at Georgetown, I recently read Octavia E. Butler’s incredible short story collection, Bloodchild and Other Stories, for Dr. Mecca Sullivan’s Global Black Feminist Poetics course, and the powerful poignancy of its prose reminded me of the speculative tales that sparked my love for reading and writing as a little girl.

Congratulations, Jamira!