About

Sylvea Hollis is an Associate Professor of African and African American History at Montgomery College.  Hollis earned a Ph.D. in US History, with a concentration in African American History from the University of Iowa.

As a graduate student they developed and taught their own courses in African American History; created civically engaged programming with the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies; and earned a graduate certificate in Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies. At Montgomery College, Hollis teaches courses in African History, African American History, Early US History, Public History, and Gender and Women's Studies. 

Before coming to Montgomery College in the fall of 2020, Hollis was an NPS-Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow and taught courses in gender and sexuality in the American Studies Department at The George Washington University. They earned a MA in History Museum Studies from the Cooperstown Graduate Program (SUNY-Oneonta) and has extensive experience in the field of public history, working with the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, American Alliance of Museums, and the National Park Service. 

Dr. Hollis is the Founder of HISTORYwHOLLIS, LLC, a public humanities consultancy. HwH helps institutions imagine brighter futures, by exploring lessons from the past.

Their  blog  explores the intersections of archives, humanities, and teaching.

Publications: 

“The Rhetoric of Freedom: Remembering Slavery during the Semiquincentennial of the American Revolution,” (The Public Historian, forthcoming in February 2024) 

“’I like to say I’m from Birmingham’: John Rhoden’s Memory(s) of Home,” in Determined to Be: Sculptures of John Rhoden, edited by Brittany Webb (University of Washington Press, forthcoming in February 2024) 

Second Author with Tondra Loder-Jackson, “Fantasizing Education for Liberation in Jim Crow Birmingham: Angela Davis’s Formative Years and Intertwined Legacy with Pioneer Educator and Prison Abolitionist Carrie A. Tuggle,” in #BlackEducatorsMatter: The Experiences of Black Teachers in an Anti-Black World, edited by Dr. Darrius Stanley (Harvard Education Press, forthcoming February 2024) 

"The African American History Survey as an Intellectual Product," Black Perspectives: African American Intellectual History Society--December 23, 2022