Camara "Cam"
Silver

Doctoral Lecturer

Room number
9-65-37

Areas of expertise

Most requested topics by media

  • Civil Rights & Liberties
  • Congress / Legislative Process
  • Hate Crimes
  • Human Rights
  • Immigration
  • LGBTQQIA
  • Presidency
  • Racial & Social Justice
  • Terrorism & Violent Extremism
  • Women / Gender Justice

Faculty Expertise: topics/keywords

Genocide and Extremism Studies
Interdisciplinary training across three degrees in genocide, mass violence, racialized harm, and counter-extremism, with sustained attention to the political and moral failures surrounding atrocity prevention.

American Government
Expertise in the presidency, pop culture, media, interest groups, public opinion, racial politics, LGBT politics, and the domestic sources of American foreign policy, with particular emphasis on how institutions, political communication, and identity shape governance and conflict in the United States.

International Relations
Expertise in international relations theory, human rights, humanitarian intervention, peacekeeping, the United Nations, American foreign policy, national security, and global crises.

Comparative Politics
Expertise in nationalism, citizenship, race, state formation, and political conflict, with regional depth spanning Africa, the Caribbean, and East Asia, especially Rwanda, Somalia, Haiti, and Japan.

Africana Studies and Sexuality Studies
Grounded in formal training in Africana Studies, with sustained expertise in sexuality, identity, power, and intersectional analysis across scholarship, teaching, and curriculum design.

Archival and Media Research
Experienced in historical, archival, and primary source research, including work at the Clinton Presidential Library, alongside media and discourse analysis across political and cultural texts.

In the media

Print/Online

Jurecic, Quinta. The Third Red Scare. The Atlantic. Interviewed on the continuation of the Red Scare in a new form, with particular attention to the political targeting and prosecution of trans people.

Education

Ph.D. in Government and International Affairs, University of South Florida, School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies, 2021
Dissertation: The Domestic Reality of Foreign Policy: The 1994 Clinton Administration Response to the Crises in Rwanda and Haiti

M.A. in Africana Studies, University of South Florida, 2015
Thesis: The United States Response to Genocide in Rwanda: A Reassessment

B.A. in History, Saint Leo University, 2012
Thesis: The International Community Response to Genocide in Rwanda

Bio

I am a political scientist with one foot in the archive, one foot in the classroom, and both eyes fixed on power. My work engages questions of genocide, political violence, American government, foreign policy, human rights, race, and sexuality, and is grounded in interdisciplinary training across history, Africana Studies, and government. I approach that work as a scholar, advocate, and cultural critic, committed to making political life more legible both in public and in the classroom. Teaching is one of the strongest parts of my professional identity, and across John Jay, Barnard, West Point, Saint Leo, the University of South Florida, and unconventional spaces like Pasco County Jail, I have worked to build classrooms that are rigorous, alive, and unafraid of the world as it is.

To borrow from the Pixar film Soul, I am in the business of inspiration, and for me, that is the deepest way of living up to Camara, my West African name, which means one who teaches.

Courses Taught

Political Science (Undergraduate)
POL 101: American Government & Politics
POL 313: The Law and Politics of Race Relations
POL 260: International Relations
POL 318: The Law and Politics of LGBTQ Rights
POL 335: Celebrity and Politics
POL 409: Colloquium for Research in Government and Politics 

Honors Program (Undergraduate)
HON 301: Honors Seminar 

Human Rights Program (Master’s)
HR 713: Defending Dignity: LGBT+ Rights as Human Rights

Professional Memberships

  • American Political Science Association
  • International Association of Genocide Scholars
  • Critical Ethnic Studies Association
  • American Studies Association

Languages

English and working reading proficiency in French

Scholarly Work

Silver, Camara Cam. Review of Hypocrisy and Human Rights: Resisting Accountability for Mass Atrocities, by Kate Cronin-Furman. Florida Political Chronicle 30, no. 2 (2023): 145.

Honors and Awards

Commendation for Service
Department of the Army, 2022
For teaching contributions at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

McKnight Doctoral Fellowship
2015–2021
$22,000 annually in support of doctoral research.

TRIO Achiever Award
Florida TRIO, 2015
Statewide award recognizing achievement across Florida TRIO programs, awarded for work in Upward Bound and prior participation as a TRIO student.

USF Black Faculty and Staff Award
University of South Florida, 2019
For the development of Queer Global Social Movements.

Mark Orr Student Fellowship
American Committee on Foreign Relations, 2012

Research Summary

My research began in American foreign policy, particularly the domestic political forces that shaped U.S. responses to the crises in Rwanda and Haiti, and that foundation still anchors my scholarship even as my work has expanded into the presidency, American government, international relations, race, LGBT politics, media, and popular culture. Across these areas, I am interested in crisis, governance, identity, and the political and cultural narratives that shape how people understand conflict, exclusion, and public life.