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University of Rochester

Frederick Douglass Institute for African and African-American Studies

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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.

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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

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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

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Anthony T. Carter

Carter, Anthony T.

  • Professor Emeritus

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

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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

Joshua Dubler

Dubler, Joshua

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

Interests: Religion in America

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Stanley Engerman

Engerman, Stanley

  • Professor of Economics, Emeritus

Interests: Economic History; Economics of Sports

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Professor Kara Finnigan.

Finnigan, Kara

  • Professor of Educational Leadership

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Signithia Fordham

Fordham, Signithia

  • Professor, University of Rochester

Interests: Research

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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

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Th. Emil Homerin

Homerin, Th. Emil

  • Professor Emeritus of Religion
    Larry Hudson Headshot

    Hudson, Larry E.

    • Associate Professor of History

    Interests: African-American History; Comparative Slavery; Civil War and Reconstruction; New South; Theory and Methods of Oral History

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    Hunter, Cory

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

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    Joseph Inikori Headshot

    Inikori, Joseph E.

    • Professor of History

    Interests: Atlantic World Economic History

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    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

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    Elias Mandala Headshot

    Mandala, Elias C.

    • Professor of History

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

    Kathryn Mariner

    Mariner, Kathryn

    • Assistant 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

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    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

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    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

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    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.

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    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

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    Radegonde-Eison, Ghislaine, Dr.

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

    Website

    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

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    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
    • Director of Undergraduate Studies

    Interests: African Diaspora, Latin American and Atlantic History

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    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

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    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