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

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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

Josephine Bonds smiling at the camera.

Bonds, Josephine

  • Departmental Manager
Person's photo

Bridges, William H., IV

  • Arthur Satz Professor of the Humanities
    Associate Professor of Modern Languages and Cultures

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 Professor of Roman Catholic Studies
    Professor of Religion and Classics

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

Headshot of Jordan Ealey.

Ealey, Jordan

they/she

  • Assistant Professor, Department of Black Studies

Interests: Black feminist theory and praxis; Black theatre and performance; Nineteenth and twentieth century Black intellectual history, sound studies, popular music, and Black girlhood studies

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

she/her/hers

  • Assistant Professor of Linguistics
  • Director of Language Documentation and Description Program
    Co-Director of Grammar and Variation Lab
    On leave for the 23-24 academic year

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

H

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Hunter, Cory

  • Assistant Professor of Music, Arthur Satz Department of Music, School of Arts & Sciences
    Assistant Professor of Musicology, Eastman School of Music

I

Joseph Inikori Headshot

Inikori, Joseph E.

  • Professor Emeritus 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, Arthur Satz Department of Music, School of Arts & Sciences
    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

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

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 Professor
    Associate Professor of English
    Associate Professor of Black Studies
  • Chair, Faculty Programs and Departmental Initiatives, Department of Black Studies
Jeffrey Q. McCune, Jr.

McCune, Jeffrey Q., Jr.

  • Chair of Faculty Programs and Departmental Initiatives
Headshot of Philip McHarris.

McHarris, Philip V.

he/him/his

  • Assistant Professor, Department of Black Studies

Interests: Racial inequality, housing, and policing

John Michael

Michael, John

  • John Hall Deane Professor of Rhetoric and Poetry
    Professor of English
    Professor of Visual and Cultural Studies
  • Director, American Studies
    Interim Chair, Department of Black Studies

Interests: American literature; critical theory; cultural studies

Headshot of John Michael.

Michael, John

  • Interim Chair
Photo unavailable

Moon, Alexander

  • Lecturer, Department of Political Science

Website

N

Leila Nadir

Nadir, Leila Christine

  • Associate Professor of Environmental Humanities
  • Director, Environmental Humanities Program

Interests: Anthropocene; Apocalypse; Environmental humanities; Memoir and creative nonfiction; Social practice art; Food studies; Theories of modernity/modernism; Cultural histories of colonialism and extractive capitalism; Immigration studies; Cold War geopolitics, especially related to Afghanistan; Politics of Race and Ethnicity; American Literature

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

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Papaioannou, Julie

  • Professor of Instruction in French
  • Language Pedagogy Coordinator, French
    Study Abroad Advisor, 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 in Jewish Studies
    Associate Professor of Religion and Classics
  • Chair, Department of Religion and Classics

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

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Russell, Todd

  • Adjunct Instructor, Dance Program

Website

S

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 of Undergraduate Studies, Department of English
    Director of Undergraduate Studies, Department of Black Studies

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

Professor Jeffrey Tucker

Tucker, Jeffrey Allen

  • Director of Undergraduate Studies

W

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West, Glenn A.

  • Director of Mbira Ensemble
    ECMS Collegiate Instructor in Mbira

Website

Sharon Willis

Willis, Sharon

  • Fanny Knapp Allen Professor of Fine Arts
    Professor of Art and Art History
    Professor of 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