Dr. Seneca Vaught, Professor of History and Interdisciplinary Studies

Seneca Vaught is a Professor of History and Interdisciplinary Studies at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. His teaching and research focus on global intersections of race, culture, and policy emphasizing applied historical methods in grassroots policy, cultural diplomacy, and community-engaged scholarship.

Dr. Vaught's work on anti-intellectualism and consumerism in higher education, Is College a Lousy Investment?: Negotiating the Hidden Cost of Higher Education, applies interdisciplinary insights to analyze how the promotion of education merely as a commodity come at a high price for the individual and American society. The book discusses how the popular idea of ‘investment in a college degree’ came to be and how students and educators can engage a broader, more holistic, and so-called financially responsible role for higher education.

He has published book chapters and numerous articles in Souls, Spectrum, Groundings, Phylon, and Afro-Americans in New York Life and History and won numerous awards for teaching, community engagement, and applied historical research. He was awarded the John B. Muir Editor Award by the National Association for College Admission Counseling and the Williams Wells Brown Award for accomplishments in these areas.

Vaught has also formerly served as editor of Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, commissioner for the New York Underground Railroad Heritage Corridor, senior fellow of information and technology at the Africana Cultures and Policy Studies Institute, and interned at TransAfrica Forum. He is currently a committee member of the Cobb County Remembrance Coalition.

Email: svaught3@kennesaw.edu 

 

MAST Courses Taught:  

  • AMST 7330: Identities and Social Groups 
  • AMST 7420: American Popular Culture 
     

Select Publications:  

  • Vaught, Seneca. "No Justice, No Peace Prize: Stanley 'Tookie' Williams, the 1992 Bloods‐Crips Truce, and the Limits of Racial Peacekeeping." Peace & Change 46, no. 4 (2021): 353-383.  
     
  • Jabbaar-Gyambrah, Tara, and Seneca Vaught. Is College a Lousy Investment?: Negotiating the Hidden Costs of Higher Education. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018. https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781475833818  
     
  • Vaught, Seneca. "An 'Act of God': Race, Religion, and Policy in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina." Souls 11, no. 4 (2009): 408-421. https://doi.org/10.1080/1099994090335104 
     
  • Vaught, Seneca, and R. N. Bradley. "Of the Wings of Traplanta: (Re)Historicizing W.E.B. Du Bois' Atlanta in the Hip Hop South." Phylon 54, no. 2 (2017): 11-27.