The Lapidus Center 2019-20 Fellowship Award

I am very excited to share that I have been awarded a 2019-2020 Lapidus Center long term fellowship!

The Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery funds (2) long-term fellows and (2) short-term fellows through the generous support of Ruth and Sid Lapidus matched by The New York Public Library. It is the only facility of its kind based in a public research library and shares space with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, New York.

The Lapidus residency program is designed to (1) encourage research and writing on the slave trade, slavery, and anti-slavery in the Atlantic world, (2) to promote and facilitate interaction among the participants including fellows funded by other sources, and (3) to facilitate the dissemination of the researchers’ findings through lectures and publications.

I will be working on a project titled, “Afro-Gothic: Black Aesthetics of Horror - Past & Present.” The Afro-Gothic is an aesthetic means of coping with the trauma of colonial slavery. My approach expands upon this definition by identifying the Afro-Gothic as a colonial-based system of aesthetics, centralized in the Afro-Caribbean, and present in contemporary politics of representation. At first glance, the Gothic by name is derived from a European literary tradition. However, the gothic by manifestation and mythology is a global phenomenon. In other words, every culture possesses its own form of ghost stories, monsters, or mythical creatures with supernatural powers. However, when the tropes of the gothic are closely examined, we are able to identify how constructions of the monstrous parallel constructions of race, particularly blackness, under the colonial project. A critical analysis of the Afro-Gothic that is rooted in archival materials and connected to contemporary black aesthetics is able to define how blackness is often represented as aberrant or gruesome. Whether through creative performance or the reality of everyday racialized violence, a pattern of Afro-Gothic sensibilities emerges in the present. This is a wonderful opportunity to research the preeminent collections of the Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery and the Schomburg Center of Research in Black Culture.

I have also recently participated in the Lapidus Center’s conference, “Enduring Slavery: Resistance, Public Memory, and Transatlantic Archives,” which took place on October 10-12, 2019. I moderated a panel titled, “Visual Art, Architecture, and the Memorialization of Slavery,” featuring Tamara K. Lanier, Vice President of the New London, CT NAACP Branch; artist Anne Bouie; architect Julian Bonder; and artist La Vaughn Belle. The conference’s panels, discussions, plenary, and presentations were an awesome display of pioneering researching and excellence - thanks in large part to the conference organizer and Associate Director and Curator of the Lapidus Center, Dr. Michelle Commander. We all are looking forward to the next conference!

https://www.lapiduscenter.org/2019-2020-lapidus-center-fellows/

https://www.lapiduscenter.org/2019-lapidus-center-conference/

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

Photo Credit: Lisa Herndon