Office: 410 Humanities

Ph.D., Indiana University, Bloomington

Virginia E. Whealton is a historian and musicologist whose research addresses questions of music and identity in the long nineteenth century, often as they intersect with nationalism, geopolitical imagination, travel, and cultural memory.

Her current book project, Urban Virginians, Musical Citizens: The Myers Family of Norfolk, investigates how a musically and culturally innovative urban life in the Old Dominion developed during the Early Republic vis-à-vis the mythos of Old Virginia and the Planter Class, and why urban Virginians' cultural accomplishments have disturbed dominant narratives of Virginian and American identity for more than two centuries. During the 2022–2023 academic year, this project has been supported by a Postdoctoral Research Leave Fellowship from the American Association of University Women.

A 2021 recipient of the Professing Excellence award at Texas Tech, Dr. Whealton is passionate about employing arts-related sources and experiences in her pedagogy. She enjoys engaging students with archival sources, digital humanities, and interdisciplinary approaches. She often presents and publishes in forums that support interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary exchange Recent publications have appeared in Studia Chopinowskie (2020) Brepols's Speculum Musicae series (2019), and Nineteenth-Century Contexts (2019).

A former military kid, Dr. Whealton calls Virginia her home state. She earned a Bachelor of Music degree from Houghton College in New York state and her MA and PhD in Musicology from Indiana University, Bloomington.