Virginia H. Cope

Virginia H. Cope is Associate Professor of English at The Ohio State University and Associate Dean of The Ohio State University at Newark. She received her doctorate from The University of Virginia and her M.S. from Columbia Journalism School. She is the author of Property, Education, and Identity in Late Eighteenth-Century Fiction: The Heroine of Disinterest (Palgrave MacMillan, 2009) and co-executive producer, with Dr. Tiyi Morris, of two films documenting the Mardi Gras Indians of New Orleans: Spirit Leads My Needle: The Big Chiefs of Carnival and It’s Your Glory: The Big Queens of Carnival.  Both air seasonally on New Orleans’ PBS station (WYES). “It’s Your Glory” was nominated in the cultural documentary category for a National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Suncoast Regional Emmy in 2016. Dr Cope and Dr Morris are producing a third documentary, with Ohio State Newark students and their Mardi Gras Indian partners, of the pandemic on the tradition, due for release in 2023.