Shelby Smith
Assistant Professor of Practice
Research Areas
Socio-spatial theory
Geographies of belonging
Geohumanities
Shelby Lillian Smith is an Assistant Professor of Practice in the School of Geography, Development & Environment. She is a political geographer whose scholarship engages socio-spatial theory, urban geography, and the geographies of belonging, with particular attention to how power and identity become inscribed onto everyday urban space.
She is also drawn to political and spatial questions situated at the intersection of geography and the humanities, including struggles over who holds the authority to narrate - or "write" - the world. Her new work considers how control over books, reading, and literacy is itself a spatial and political act - shaping whose stories reach a classroom or a public library shelf, and which histories and geographies become visible, contested, or erased in the process.
Her teaching asks students to become active narrators of their own learning through inclusive courses that connect academic material to students' lived experiences and personal interests. Her regular courses include Political Geography (373), Urban Growth and Development (379), and (coming soon) From Middle-earth to Mars: The Geography of Worldbuilding (212).
She holds a PhD in Geography and a Master’s degree in Latin American Studies from the University of Arizona, as well as a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Mount Holyoke College.
If you are a current or prospective student who’d like to learn more about geography (or are just looking for a good book recommendation), her door is always open!