Faculty

Lori D. Banks

Assistant Professor of Biology

microbiology, Molecular Interactions of Host-Pathogen Interface, Protein Biochemistry, Protein Biochemistry

Dale E. Chapman

Professor of Music

20th century American music, African American music, American studies, critical race theory, cultural studies, historical musicology, jazz studies, popular music studies

Ian Khara Ellasante

Assistant Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies

African American cultural studies, Black feminisms, Community-Engaged learning, cultural studies, Decolonizing methodologies, feminist theory, gender and sexuality, Indigenous studies, LGBTQ2+ Youth and Young Adults, North American Indigenous feminisms, North American Indigenous literatures, Peoplehood matrix, race and ethnicity, reproductive justice, Reproductive justice, Settler colonialism, transgender studies

Baltasar Fra-Molinero

Professor of Hispanic Studies

Cervantes, Global Hispanophone Studies, literature and culture of Equatorial Guinea, Literatures of the African Diaspora in Spanish, race and religion in early modern Spain and Spanish America, Spanish, Spanish and Spanish American Renaissance and Baroque studies, Spanish baroque theater

Myronn E. Hardy

Assistant Professor of English

Contemporary American Poetry, creative writing, Lyric Essay, North Africa, poetry, Poetry in Translation, visual culture

S. E. Houchins

Associate Professor of Africana

anglophone continental African and Caribbean and Canadian and some U.S. African American, anthropological analyses, critical race theory, exploring the political and cultural and social contexts of texts, indigenous Islamic and Christian religions in their African and Caribbean and American contexts, interpreting African literature by women, literatures of the African diaspora, religions of Africa and the African diaspora, theories of gender and sexualities as well as literary theories, work theorizing

Marcelle M. Medford

Assistant Professor of Sociology

Black Caribbean immigrants in the US, Black sociology, Ethnography, immigrant racialization, Qualitative Methods, sociology of immigration, urban immigration, urban sociology

Charles I. Nero

Benjamin E. Mays ’20 Distinguished Prof of Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies

African American literary studies, African-American studies, American studies, critical race theory, cultural studies, film studies, LGBTQ issues in film and literature, literary and rhetorical criticism, popular culture studies, queer theory and studies, race and Hollywood film

Patrick W. Otim

Associate Professor of History

Therí Pickens

Professor of English

20th and 21st century African American/Arab American literature, African American literature and cultural studies, Arab American literature and cultural studies, black feminism, cognitive impairment, disability, disability studies, gender studies, literary theory, mental health, physical impairment, spectacular fiction

Joshua Rubin

Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology