Bonnie Thornton Dill
Professor, The Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Professor, American Studies
btdill@umd.edu
1102 Francis Scott Key Hall
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Bonnie Thornton Dill was appointed dean of the University of Maryland’s College of Arts and Humanities in 2011 and served in that position through June 2022. She joined the university in 1991 as professor and served as chair of the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (formerly the women’s studies department) for eight years.
As dean, Thornton Dill has worked to increase support for and the visibility of arts and humanities research and scholarship; provide leadership for interdisciplinary initiatives within the college and across the campus; support student engagement with underserved communities; and increase the number of UMD’s national scholarship award recipients.
A pioneering scholar on the intersections of race, class and gender in the U.S. with an emphasis on African-American women, work and families, she is founding director of both the Center for Research on Women at the University of Memphis and the Consortium on Race, Gender, and Ethnicity at UMD. Her scholarship includes three books and numerous articles.
She is former president of the National Women’s Studies Association; former vice president of the American Sociological Association; and former chair of the Committee of Scholars for Ms. magazine.
She earned her doctoral and master’s degrees in sociology and human relations, respectively, from New York University and her bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Rochester.
Publications
The Sandbox, Sisterhood, and a Sociological Journey
Bonnie Thornton Dill publishes essay in new book on comparative race and ethnicity studies
Author/Lead: Bonnie Thornt…Non-ARHU Contributor(s): Margaret L Anderson and Maxine Baca Zinn (Editors)
At a time when movements for racial justice are front and center in U.S. national politics, this book provides essential new understanding to the study of race, its influence on people's lives, and what we can do to address the persistent and foundational American problem of systemic racism. Knowledge about race and racism changes as social and historical conditions evolve, as different generations of scholars experience unique societal conditions, and as new voices from those who have previously been kept at the margins have challenged us to reconceive our thinking about race and ethnicity. In this collection of essays by prominent sociologists whose work has transformed the understanding of race and ethnicity, each reflects on their career and how their personal experiences have shaped their contribution to understanding racism, both in scholarly and public debate.
Merging biography, memoir, and sociohistorical analysis, these essays provide vital insight into the influence of race on people's perspectives and opportunities both inside and outside of academia, and how racial inequality is felt, experienced, and confronted.
Emerging Intersections: Race, Class, and Gender in Theory, Policy, and Practice
This coedited by Dr. Ruth E. Zambrana and Dr. Bonnie Thornton Dill collects ten previously unpublished essays on intersectionality
Author/Lead: Bonnie Thornt…, Ruth Enid ZambranaThe United States is known as a "melting pot" yet this mix tends to be volatile and contributes to a long history of oppression, racism, and bigotry.
Emerging Intersections, an anthology of ten previously unpublished essays, looks at the problems of inequality and oppression from new angles and promotes intersectionality as an interpretive tool that can be utilized to better understand the ways in which race, class, gender, ethnicity, and other dimensions of difference shape our lives today. The book showcases innovative contributions that expand our understanding of how inequality affects people of color, demonstrates the ways public policies reinforce existing systems of inequality, and shows how research and teaching using an intersectional perspective compels scholars to become agents of change within institutions. By offering practical applications for using intersectional knowledge, Emerging Intersections will help bring us one step closer to achieving positive institutional change and social justice.