Staff
Katherine (Katie) Crawford, Interim Director
Katherine Crawford is Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of History and a professor of gender and sexuality studies. In both her teaching and research, she is is interested in the ways that gender informs sexual practice, ideology, and identity, both in normative and non-normative formations. She is an award-winning teacher, having received the Jeffrey Nordhaus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at Vanderbilt and the Von Holst Teaching Prize at the University of Chicago. She has served as co-president of French Historical Studies, and she is currently on the editorial boards of French History and The Journal of the History of Sexuality. Her publications include Perilous Performances: Gender and Regency in Early Modern France (Harvard, 2004), European Sexualities, 1400-1800 (Cambridge, 2007), The Sexual Culture of the French Renaissance (Cambridge, 2010), and Eunuchs and Castrati: Disability and Normativity in Early Modern Europe (Routledge, 2019). She has published articles in journals such as Renaissance and Reformation; Renaissance et réforme, The Journal of Modern History, and the Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies. She is currently working on a project tentatively entitled Deceiving Women: The Inscrutable Female Body at the Origins of Modernity and editing a volume of essays on prostitution in early modern Europe.
Matt DiCintio, Associate Director
Matt DiCintio is associate director of the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities, where he oversees general operations, graduate student programming, and the Collaborative Humanities Postdoctoral Program. He returned to academia after a career in professional theatre as a playwright, dramaturg, and producer. As a historian, DiCintio specializes in early American popular entertainments (freak shows and animal displays) and how performance regulated access to political and cultural citizenship. He holds an MA in Romance Languages from the University of North Carolina, an MFA in Pedagogy from Virginia Commonwealth University, and a PhD in Drama from Tufts University. He is a member of The Dramatists Guild.
Terry Tripp, Activities Coordinator
Terry Tripp joined the Warren Center in 2013. Before that, she worked as an administrative assistant in the A&S Dean’s Office. She also worked with the ACLU of Tennessee and did freelance writing and editing for CABLE, a professional women’s organization. She has a B.A. in communications and minors in journalism and French, however, she has forgotten all of her French – even the swear words. She has one husband, two sons, two cats and one dog. Her children have rebelled against her in the cruelest way possible, by refusing to watch the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” TV series. She hopes they see the error of their ways soon so she can say, “I told you so!”
Cassie Kirchmeier, Program Specialist
Cassie Kirchmeier is new to Vanderbilt University- and Nashville! Hailing from Michigan, she moved to Nashville in 2023 and has been mostly focused on finding ways to integrate some southern charm into her midwestern attitude. With a BA in English Literature and a minor in Musical Theatre from Michigan State University, she has a deep appreciation for all storytelling mediums. When not at the Vaughn Home, you can find her welcoming you into a local music venue, writing at a coffee shop or waiting at the airport to board a flight somewhere new.