Research & Teaching

Intellectual Influences

In my research and teaching, I center a perspective that is sensitive to global Black identity and the ways different geographic spaces, histories, and cultures shape Black experience. I have participated in a number of scholarly activities that have pushed my intellectual thinking on the relationship between public policy, the arts, community engagement and global Black culture and experience. In Summer 2016, I was selected to participate in a summer seminar funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, “Arts of Survival: Recasting Lives in African Cities” at Indiana University.

There I engaged with several scholars across a number of disciplines and began thinking about comparative frames for understanding Black life and culture across different cities and nations. Continuing that trajectory, during summer 2019 I further engaged in discussions around international Black identity while attending the Black Europe Summer School (BESS) in Amsterdam.

There I presented a portion of my dissertation work at the BESS symposium, while also learning more about racism and the memory of slavery in The Netherlands, France, Italy and England. Continuing in that vein, I created a course called “Black Diaspora Literature in Chocolate City.” As part of my role at Georgetown’s Prison and Justice Initiative, I taught this course to incarcerated students at the DC jail. My lectures included interviews with Black authors, historians and other scholars.

Most recently, I participated in Cornell University’s Migration Institute during summer 2022. I look forward to my next opportunity to engage international thought on Black experience and identity.