Graduate Center of the City University of New York

Graduate Student, English Ph.D. Program

Other Affiliations: Lehman College of CUNY, English
New York University, Gallatin School of Individualized Study
Purchase College, Humanities

About

I'm currently a PhD candidate (ABD) in English at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY: pronounced "kew-nee") and I have graduate certificates in Africana Studies and American Studies.

My dissertation research focuses on The Last Poets, a performance poetry/activist collective born in the Black Arts Movement of the late 1960s - early 1970s who are still performing today. My work on them focuses on their early years and it's primarily a cultural history that places their work in the context of the B.A.M., Harlem, and suggests that they are modern day griots in an urban setting.

Other research interests include the Black Arts and Black Power Movements, African American popular music (particularly jazz and hip hop and the literary and cultural connections), Black and Latin@ students in Higher Ed and the CUNY system. (A fuller list is on the "research interests" section of the page.)

I currently teach in Lehman College's  (CUNY) English department, and the SEEK program at City College of NY, but have taught in NYU's Gallatin School for Individualized Study and for Hunter College's (CUNY) Sociology department.

I'm a Diversity Dissertation Fellow for the 2011-2012 academic year at SUNY Purchase, where I'll teach an interdisciplinary course on the Black Arts Movement in spring 2012.

Professional affiliations include the Association for Scholars of Classical African Civilizations, College Language Association, Jazz Journalists Association, and the National Council for Black Studies.