Holmes named W&M Libraries Faculty Scholar

Marcus Holmes has been named the next William & Mary Libraries Faculty Scholar.

Marcus Holmes will serve as the libraries' faculty scholar for three years, beginning in spring 2027. (Courtesy photo)

The following story originally appeared on the website for William & Mary Libraries. - Ed.

Marcus Holmes, professor of government, has been named the next William & Mary Libraries Faculty Scholar.

His project will use W&M's archives and the history of Williamsburg to help students understand diplomacy not as something that happens only in distant capitals, but as a human practice rooted in particular places, encounters and institutions.

Holmes joined W&M's Department of Government in fall 2014 and is co-director of the Social Science Research Methods Center, which houses the Political Psychology and International Relations Lab, which he directs. His research and teaching interests are in international security, international relations theory, foreign policy, diplomacy and political psychology. Currently, he is chair of the government department.

"I'm deeply honored to be selected as the W&M Libraries Faculty Scholar," said Holmes. "William & Mary is an extraordinary place to study diplomacy because the history is not abstract here. Williamsburg has been a site of encounter, negotiation and political imagination for centuries. This project is a chance to bring that history into conversation with the global challenges we teach in international relations today."

Holmes will serve as the libraries' faculty scholar for three years, beginning in spring 2027. As faculty scholar, he will partner with library colleagues to develop a digital, open-access educational resource. His proposed project, tentatively titled "Diplomacy in Place: Global Encounters from Williamsburg to the World," will create a series of modular, student-facing units that teach core concepts in international relations through case studies of diplomatic encounters.

For Holmes, the project begins from the idea that Williamsburg is not only a historic city, but also a diplomatic landscape. From Indigenous diplomacy and colonial treaty-making to the 1983 G7 summit and William & Mary's long connections to public service, Williamsburg offers students a way to see how global politics is rooted in specific places, institutions and encounters.

"One of the goals of the project is to make diplomacy feel concrete for students," said Holmes. "Diplomacy is often taught through treaties, wars, summits and institutions, but it also happens in rooms, around tables, through relationships, rituals and encounters. By drawing on W&M's collections and the history of Williamsburg, we can help students see diplomacy as something situated in place."

Each module will combine an essay with primary sources, visual materials and guided discussion questions, allowing students to engage directly with archival materials while learning key concepts. The goal, Holmes said, is to create a resource that is both analytically rigorous and widely accessible for use in undergraduate (including his own GOVT 204 course) and graduate courses.

The project will connect local and institutional histories to broader concepts in international relations, including sovereignty, trust, recognition, signaling, negotiation, conflict, alliance politics and the role of personal relationships in diplomacy. Possible modules may examine Indigenous diplomacy in colonial Virginia, the 1983 G7 summit in Williamsburg, the papers of Chancellor Robert M. Gates '65, L.H.D. '98 and other W&M-affiliated public servants, and oral histories with alumni working in diplomacy and national security.

"We had a highly competitive applicant pool for the Faculty Scholar position, with many strong proposals," said Lisa Nickel, interim dean of university libraries. "We were impressed by Dr. Holmes' project; its vision, scope, feasibility and incorporation of archives were attractive features."

William & Mary Libraries created the faculty scholar position in 2016 to support a tenured W&M faculty member working full-time to advance an open educational resource, such as an open textbook, digital exhibit, multimedia project or oral history initiative. The program also gives library staff the opportunity to practice emerging skills and areas of expertise being developed in academic libraries to support open access publishing and digital research.

"Our goal with this program is to put our resources directly behind our values by supporting faculty who want to rethink how they teach," said Nickel. "We are thrilled to partner with Dr. Holmes as he breathes new life into our archives, creating an open-access resource that makes deep, primary-source research a cornerstone of the student experience."

Holmes' project will draw on a range of W&M's Special Collections materials that illuminate diplomacy from multiple perspectives. These include the Robert Gates Papers, which offer insight into high-level U.S. foreign policy decision-making; the James A. Bill Papers, which document scholarly and policy engagement with U.S.-Middle East diplomacy; the John Westberg Papers, which provide a practitioner and legal perspective on international engagement; and congressional and senatorial collections that capture the domestic political dimensions of a foreign policy.

"What excites me about these collections is that they allow students to see diplomacy from multiple vantage points," said Holmes. "They can look at high-level decision-making, scholarly engagement, military experience, congressional politics and personal reflection, all through materials preserved here at William & Mary."

Jay Gaidmore, director of Special Collections, is especially excited by Holmes' plan to utilize the library's special collections in his project.

"These collections offer rich insight into the political world through the experiences of those who lived and worked in these spaces," said Gaidmore.

Lastly, the project will explore the development of an oral history component, focused on alumni and practitioners with experience in diplomacy, national security and international affairs.

"The oral history component is especially exciting because diplomacy lives in memory as well as in documents," said Holmes. "W&M alumni and affiliated practitioners have served in remarkable roles around the world. Capturing some of those experiences would allow future students to learn from the people who have practiced diplomacy, national security and international engagement firsthand."

Tami Back, W&M Libraries

• share by email
• share on Facebook
• share on X
• share on LinkedIn

• share by email
• share on Facebook
• share on X
• share on LinkedIn

Related Stories