Brian Flota
Humanities Librarian, Professor
- email: flotabc@jmu.edu
- phone: (540) 568-6779
- orcid: 0000-0002-2868-2942
Building: Burruss HallOffice: 016MSC: 1706
Departments: Academic Engagement Unit, Research & Education Services Department
Pronouns: He / Him / His
Liaison to:
English, Media Arts & Design (SMAD), Modern Foreign Languages
About me
After obtaining my MS in Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I started working at James Madison University in 2013. In this position I co-founded the Alternative Summer Break Academic Library Internship and have collaborated with JMU Libraries Special Collections and faculty in the English Department to develop a collection of Black comic books, poetry, and prose. I have produced scholarship on comics and pulp magazine collections in libraries, alt-ac careers, post-9/11 popular music, multi-ethnic American literature, Ishmael Reed, Richard Pryor, Richard Wright, and the Beat Generation. In 2015 and 2016, I donated approximately 10,000 comic books to JMU Libraries Special Collections. Prior to my career in librarianship, I earned my PhD in English from The George Washington University, teaching literature and composition classes at the public, private, and community college level from 2000 to 2011. I am also a proud first-generation college student.
About Research & Education Services Department
We further JMU’s teaching, learning, and scholarship mission through our work as educators, researchers, and collections managers. Research & Education Services is the home of the Liaison Librarians.
About Academic Engagement Unit
Academic Engagement is a new, public-facing division of the Libraries, under formation now. Departments include Library and Information Services, the Music Library, Research & Education Services, and Digital Scholarship and Distinctive Collections, which includes Digital Projects and Special Collections.