Sociology

Professor Hays examines the intersection of race and environment in an effort to apprehend the ways in which we 'see' race and racial difference through the landscape: how the natural world comes to be racialized. Their past research, published in Tourist Studies, Environmental Sociology, and Environmental Values, has focused on the racializing practice of safari in Tanzania during the colonial and postcolonial era. Their work has been supported by Fulbright-Hays, the National Science Foundation, Foreign Language and Area Studies, the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies at the University of Virginia, the Kansas African Studies Center at the University of Kansas, the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society at LMU Munich (postponed), and internal grants from Yale University and Gettysburg College.

Professor Hays is currently conducting preliminary research for a project on racialization in and through national parks, focusing on performances and constructions of whiteness among visitors to Gettysburg and Yellowstone. They have presented their research at a number of professional conferences, including the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association, the International Sociological Association, the Eastern Sociological Society, the American Anthropological Association, and the African Studies Association. Professor Hays has given invited lectures at Smith College, the University of Kansas, Lafayette College, and the University of Virginia.

At Gettysburg College, Professor Hays teaches courses on race (SOC 209), health and medicine (SOC 239), and environment (SOC 247). Since 2020, they have taught the senior capstone for the major (SOC 400), in which students design and conduct independent research. Both SOC 209 and SOC 247 count towards the Peace & Justice Studies minor, on whose council they serve. Hays's teaching has been supported by grants from the Mellon Foundation, the Johnson Center for Creative Teaching and Learning at Gettysburg, and the Center for Teaching Excellence at the University of Virginia. Before coming to Gettysburg, Professor Hays taught undergraduate courses in sociology and African studies at the University of Virginia, Mount Holyoke College, and Yale University.