Skip to main content
University of Rochester

Frederick Douglass Institute for African and African-American Studies

People

Full Directory

The Institute invites several visiting speakers each year and sponsors conferences that are linked to the research and teaching interests of our faculty. The Institute now offers faculty fellowships and a graduate certificate in addition to research grants to faculty associates to support research in African and African-American Studies.

A

Cary Adams doing acoustic radar research during a residency at the Center for Land Use Interpretation

Adams, Cary

  • Associate Professor of Art, Environment, and Emerging Practices

Website

Interests: Environmental Art and Humanities; New Media; Social Practice

B

Profile Photo

Bakhmetyeva, Tanya

  • Associate Professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies
  • Associate Academic Director, Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies

Interests: Russian and Eastern European History, History of Catholicism, Gender

Molly Ball Headshot

Ball, Molly

  • History Lecturer

Website

Interests: Brazilian History; Latin American History; Economic History; Immigration History

Kerfala Bangoura

Bangoura, Kerfala "Fana"

  • Director, UR West African Drumming Ensemble
Dan Beaumont

Beaumont, Daniel E.

  • Professor Emeritus of Religion and Classics

Website

Interests: Arabic Languages and Literature

Person's photo

Bridges, William H., IV

  • Associate Professor of Japanese

Interests: Modern Japanese language, literature, and culture; Race and ethnicity in modern Japanese literature and culture; Contemporary Japanese popular culture, especially anime; 20th-century African American literature; Literary theory, especially African American literary theory and the theory of the novel; Translation (theory and practice); Rhetoric and composition; Digital Humanities

C

Anthony T. Carter

Carter, Anthony T.

  • Professor Emeritus

Interests: rural politics; kinship and marriage; households and personhood

D

Kristin Doughty

Doughty, Kristin

  • Associate Professor of Anthropology

Interests: political and legal anthropology; politics of reconciliation; transitional justice; violence and conflict; memory; politics of energy; Africa; Rwanda

Jack Downey

Downey, Jack

  • John Henry Newman Associate Professor of Catholic Studies

Interests: Contemporary Justice Movements; Liberation Theologies; North American religious history; Christianity; Buddhism: and Contemplative Traditions

Joshua Dubler

Dubler, Joshua

  • Associate Professor of Religion
  • Director, Rochester Education Justice Initiative

Interests: Religion in America

E

Stanley Engerman

Engerman, Stanley

  • Professor of Economics, Emeritus

Interests: Economic History; Economics of Sports

F

Professor Kara Finnigan.

Finnigan, Kara

  • Professor of Educational Leadership

Website

Signithia Fordham

Fordham, Signithia

  • Professor, University of Rochester

Interests: Research

G

Gerald Gamm Headshot

Gamm, Gerald

  • Professor of History
    Professor of Political Science

Website

Interests: Political Science; American History

Nadine Grimm

Grimm, Nadine

  • Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics
  • Director, Language Documentation and Description Program

Interests: Grammatical tone; Language documentation and description; Typology; African languages, particularly Bantu

H

Profile photo

Hunter, Cory

  • Assistant Professor of Music, Department of Music, College of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering
    Assistant Professor of Musicology, Eastman School of Music

I

Joseph Inikori Headshot

Inikori, Joseph E.

  • Professor of History

Interests: Atlantic World Economic History

K

Cilas Kemedjio

Kemedjio, Cilas

  • Professor of French

Interests: Francophone Caribbean and African literary and cultural studies; postcolonial theory; transnational black studies; humanitarianism

Jennifer Kyker

Kyker, Jennifer

  • Associate Professor of Music, Department of Music, College of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering
    Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology, Eastman School of Music

M

Elias Mandala Headshot

Mandala, Elias C.

  • Professor of History

Interests: Southern Africa since the 19th Century; Social History

Kathryn Mariner

Mariner, Kathryn

  • Associate Professor of Anthropology and Visual and Cultural Studies

Interests: intimacy and social inequality; politics of race, class and gender; temporality; kinship and adoption; care; social work; space and place; visual anthropology; United States

UR photo

Marshall, Cona

  • Assistant Professor of American Religions

Interests: Womanism, Black feminism, the Black church (as an institution), and African American public religious rhetoric

Professor McCune.

McCune, Jeffrey Q., Jr.

  • Frederick Douglass Associate Professor of African-American Literature and Culture
  • Director, Frederick Douglass Institute for African and African-American Studies
John Michael

Michael, John

  • Professor of English and Visual and Cultural Studies
  • Director of American Studies

Interests: American literature; critical theory; cultural studies

Photo unavailable

Moon, Alexander

  • Lecturer, Department of Political Science

Website

N

Leila Nadir

Nadir, Leila

  • Assistant Professor of Environmental Humanities
  • Environmental Humanities Program Director

Interests: anthropocene; apocalypse; environmental humanities; memoir and creative nonfiction; social practice art; food studies; theories of modernity/modernism

O

Profile Photo Omelsky

Omelsky, Matthew

  • Assistant Professor of English

Interests: Global black cultural studies; African and Caribbean literatures; film and digital media; time and phenomenology; speculative fiction; critical theory.

P

Person's photo

Papaioannou, Julie

  • Associate Professor of Instruction in French
  • Language Coordinator, French

Interests: French language and culture; French and Francophone literature and film (twentieth and twenty-first centuries); French literary translation; French criticism, literary and postcolonial theory

R

Nora Rubel

Rubel, Nora

  • Jane and Alan Batkin Professor of Jewish Studies
  • Chair, Department of Religion and Classics

Interests: American Religion; Race and Ethnicity; Religion and Foodways

Profile Photo

Russell, Todd

  • Adjunct Instructor, Dance Program

Website

S

Profile Photo

Saab, A. Joan

  • Professor of Art History and Visual and Cultural Studies
  • Vice Provost of Academic Affairs

Interests: Twentieth-century American cultural history; media and culture; urban and community studies; popular culture; cultural studies; aesthetic categories and values

Pablo Sierra Silva Headshot

Sierra Silva, Pablo M.

  • Associate Professor of History

Interests: African Diaspora, Latin American and Atlantic History

T

Jason Titus

Titus, Jason

  • Senior Lecturer
Jeffrey Tucker

Tucker, Jeffrey Allen

  • Associate Professor of English
  • Director, Undergraduate Studies

Interests: African-American literature; 20th-century American literature; science fiction

U

Ngozi Udo

Udo, Ngozi

  • Program Manager, Frederick Douglass Institute for African and African American Studies

W

Person's photo

West, Glenn A.

  • Director of Mbira Ensemble
    ECMS Collegiate Instructor in Mbira

Website

Sharon Willis

Willis, Sharon

  • Professor, Art and Art History/Visual and Cultural Studies

Interests: Film history and theory; visual and cultural studies; women's studies and feminist theory; comparative literature and critical theory; French cinema; 19th and 20th century French literature

Michael Wolkoff

Wolkoff, Michael

  • Professor of Economics - part-time

Interests: Public Policy; Economics