African American and African Diaspora art history and visual culture, cultural memory theory, history of photography, the art market, museum studies, African architecture, cultural heritage tourism.

Employment:

Assistant Professor, History of Art Department, Cornell University, 2004-present
Faculty-in-Residence, Clara Dickson Hall, Cornell University, 2009-2012
Visiting Assistant Professor, African and African American Studies Department, Harvard University, Spring 2007
Visiting Assistant Professor, Africana Studies Department, Cornell University, 2003-2004
Visiting Assistant Professor, Art Department, Wellesley College, 2002-2003

Education:

Ph.D., African American Studies and History of Art, Yale University, 2002
M.A., African American Studies and History of Art, Yale University, 1998
B.A., Spanish, Wellesley College, 1986

Publications:

Monograph Books:

Committed to Memory: the Slave Ship Icon in the Black Atlantic Imagination (Princeton University Press, forthcoming)

Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons (UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center and University of Minnesota Press, forthcoming)

Edited Books/Journals:

Atlas of the Slave Trade. Edited with David Brion Davis, Jim Basker, David Blight, Robert Harms, Paul Lachance and David Richardson (Yale University Press, 2010).

Diaspora, Memory, Place: David Hammons, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Pamela Z. Edited with Salah M. Hassan (Prestel, 2008).

Strange Fruit: Lynching Visuality and Empire, edited with Brett de Bary and Salah Hassan. Special issue of Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, Number 20, Fall 2006.

Co-authored Books and Catalogues:

Imaging African Art: Documentation and Transformation. Exhibition catalogue written with Daniell Cornell (Yale University Art Gallery, 2000).

From Swing to Soul: An Illustrated History of African American Popular Music from 1930 to 1960. Written with William Barlow (Elliott & Clark, 1994).

Exhibition Catalogue Essays:

“The Mask as Muse: The Influence of African Art on the Life and Career of Loïs Mailou Jones,” in Carla Hanzal, Loïs Mailou Jones: A Life in Vibrant Color (Mint Museum of Art, 2009). >>Link

“M=Memory,” in Deborah Willis, “Let Your Motto Be Resistance”: African American Portraiture from 1865 to the Present (National Museum of African American History and Culture, 2007).

“Autenticando Masmorras, Branqueando Castelos,” Brazilian translation of “Authenticating Dungeons, Whitewashing Castles,” in Solange O. Farkas, Mostra Pan Africana de Arte Contemporanea (Video Brasil and Museu de Arte Moderna, Salvador da Bahia, 2005).

“Erinnerung verpflichtet: Die Ikone des Sklavenschiffs in der Vorstellungswelt des Black Atlantic,” German translation of essay “Committed to Memory: the Slave Ship Icon in the Black Atlantic Imagination,” in Tina Campt and Paul Gilroy, Der Black Atlantic (Haus der Kulturen der Welt, 2004).

“Roshini Kempadoo: The Still Moving Image,” in Roshini Kempadoo: Works 1990-2004 (OVA, 2004).

“Sites of Memory,” in Harlem World: Metropolis as Metaphor (Studio Museum in Harlem, 2004).

“Cinderella,” in Joy Gregory: Cinderella (Barcelona: Diputacion Foral de Alava, 2003). Translated into Catalan and Castellano.

“Harlem Guaranteed: The Photographic Legacy of James VanDerZee,” in Harlem Guaranteed. (Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, 2002).

“When Lightning Strikes: Terry Adkins Imagines History,” in Deeper Still (Harn Museum of Art, 2001).

“Berenice Abbott” in Cheryl Finley, Berenice Abbott. East Rutherford, NJ: Commerce Graphics, 1988.                                   

Chapters in Books:

“No More Auction Block For Me!” in Shawn Michele Smith and Maurice Wallace, eds. Pictures and Progress (Duke University Press, forthcoming 2011)

“To Travel in Her Shoes,” in Deborah Willis, ed. Venus 2010: The Art, Science and Fiction of Sarah Baartman(Temple University Press, forthcoming 2010)

“1969: Black Art and the Aesthetics of Memory,” in Hélène Le Dantec-Lowry and Claudine Raynaud, eds.            Incidences de L’Événement: Enjeaux et résonances du mouvement des droits civiques (The Incidence of the Event: the Stakes and Resonances of the Civil Rights Movement), Cahiers de Recherches Afro-Américaines Transversalité, No. 5, 2007 (Presses Universitaires Francois-Rabelais, 2007), p. 131-154. >>Link

“Authenticating Dungeons, Whitewashing Castles: the Former Sites of the Slave Trade on the Ghanaian Coast” in Brian MacLaren and D. Medina Lasansky, eds. The Tourism of Architecture /The Architecture of Tourism (Berg, 2004). >>Link

Journal Articles:

“To Travel in Her Shoes: Joy Gregory’s Cinderella Tours Europe, 1997-2001” Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, Special Issue on Photography, Number 21, Spring 2007. >>Link

“Of Golden Anniversaries and Bicentennials: the Convergence of Memory, Tourism and National History in Ghana in 2007,” Journeys: The International Journal of Travel and Travel Writing, 7,1, 2007. >>Link

“Reclaiming the Black Female Body in Photography: An Interview with Deborah Willis and Carla Williams,” Oneworld, Vol. 8. Issue 2, April/May 2003.

“The Door of (No) Return,” www.common-place.org, vol. 1, no. 4, July 2001.           

"Committed to Memory: The Slave Ship Icon in the Black Atlantic Imagination." Chicago Art Journal, Vol. 9, spring 1999. *Awarded the Sylvia Ardyn Boone Prize, History of Art Department, Yale University, 1998.
>>Link

"Autumn, Apples, and an Auction in Woodstock." Photography Center Quarterly, No. 56: The Joy of Collecting, fall 1993.

Reviews:

“Black President: The Art and Legacy of Fela Anikulapo Kuti,” in Valentine New York, Vol 1. Issue III, Fall 2003.

“Then and Now,” Photograph, September/October 2003 (bi-monthly column on the history of photography).

“Taryn Simon: The Innocents,” Aperture, Fall 2003.                                                                       

“Reflections in Black: Smithsonian African American Photography,” Aperture, Summer 2002.

“Committed to the Image: Contemporary Black Photographers,” Aperture, Summer 2001.

Articles About:

“A Visual Journey Through Time: What is the Role of Visual Culture?” interview with Ernestina Snead for Connecting with Cornell special double issue recognizing 11 Young Faculty Innovators, Vol. 22, No. 1-2, 2009.
>>Link

Selected Media Appearances:

Exhibition introductory video, “Black Hand: Blue Seas: The Maritime Heritage of African Americans,” Mystic Seaport Museum of America and the Sea, October 29, 2005-March 2007. >>Link

Interview for television documentary, “Reflections in Black,” co-produced by Deborah Willis and Thomas Allen Harris, New York, NY, December 20, 2006.

Humanities Council Research Grant, Cornell University, 2009
Alphonse Fletcher, Sr. Fellowship, Harvard University, 2007
Humanities Council Summer Research Fellowship, Cornell University, 2006
Humanities Council Summer Research Fellowship, Cornell University, 2005
Visiting Scholar, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2004-2005
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Ford Foundation, National Research Council, 2004-2005
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Society for Humanities, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (declined)
Mellon Fellow, Society for Humanities, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (declined)
Faculty Research Grant, Wellesley College, 2003
Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellow, National Research Council, 2001-2002
Non-Resident Fellow, W.E.B. DuBois Institute, Harvard University, 2001-2002
Faculty Research Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study of Religion at Yale, 2001-2002
Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellow, National Research Council, 2000-2001
Chester Dale Dissertation Fellow, (CASVA) Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, 2000-2001
Luce Dissertation Fellowship, American Council of Learned Societies (declined), 2000-2001
Faculty Fellow, Whitney Humanities Center, Yale University, 2000-2001
Faculty Research Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study of Religion at Yale, 20000-2001
Resident Graduate Fellow, Calhoun College, Yale University, 2000-2001
Beinecke Library Summer Research Fellow, Yale University, 1999-2000
C.Vann Woodward Dissertation Fellow, Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition, Yale University, 1999-2000
Faculty Research Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study of Religion at Yale, 1999-2000
Resident Graduate Fellow, Calhoun College, Yale University, 1999-2000
Paul Mellon Foundation Award, History of Art Department, Yale University, 1999
Lehman Traveling Fellowship, History of Art Department, Yale University, summer 1999
John F. Enders Research Fellowship, Yale University, summer 1999
British Art Center Summer Research Fellowship, Yale University, 1999
Pew Program In Religion and American History Summer Research Grant, Yale University, 1999
Center for Study of Race, Inequality and Politics Summer Research Grant, Yale University, 1999 Paul Mellon Foundation Award, History of Art Department, Yale University, 1998
Alumni Fund Award, History of Art Department, Yale University, summer 1997
African American Studies Summer Research Grant, Yale University, 1997
Paul Mellon Foundation Award, History of Art Department, Yale University, summer 1996
African American Studies Summer Research Grant, Yale University, 1996
Luso-American Foundation Award for Portuguese Language Study, Lisbon, summer 1996
Scholar-in-Residence, Schomburg Center for Research In Black Culture, 1991-1992
Summer Urban Politics Fellowship, Political Science Department, Wellesley College, 1985

“Young Faculty Innovator,” Office of the Vice-Provost for Research, Cornell University, 2009
Sylvia Ardyn Boone Prize, History of Art Department, Yale University, for “Committed to Memory: The Slave Ship Icon in the Black Atlantic Imagination,” 1998
Semi-Finalist, Reva and David Logan Grants In Support of New Writing on Photography, Photographic Resource Center, Boston University for "Photographic Images of African Americans from the FSA Years," 1991
Stecher Scholarship, Art Department, Wellesley College, for photo-essay, "El Rastro," Madrid, Spain, exhibited in Spanish Department, Wellesley College, 1986

“African Diaspora Room,” In My Father’s House, August Wilson Center for African American Culture, Pittsburgh, PA, spring 2010.

Ibrahim El Salahi Retrospective, organized with Iftikhar Dadi and Salah Hassan, Museum for African Art, New York and InIVA, London, 2011.

Re-dedicate: Ghana@ 50! Organized with Deborah Willis, W.E.B. Du Bois Center, Accra and New York University in Ghana Offices, Accra, Ghana, summer 2007.

Curatorial consultant to James Presley Ball, proposed retrospective exhibition on the life and work of the 19th century Cincinnati photographer and entrepreneur, Cincinnati Museum Center and Cincinnati Art Museum, 2004-2007.

3x3: Three Artists/Three Projects. David Hammons, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Pamela Z, organized with Salah Hassan, the official U.S. participation in Dak’Art, the biennale of contemporary African Art, Dakar, Senegal, May 7 - June 7, 2004.

Imaging African Art: Documentation and Transformation, organized with Daniell Cornell, Yale University Art Gallery, Spring-Summer 2000.

Curatorial Advisory Committee, Paul Robeson: Artist and Citizen, Centennial Exhibition of the artist's/activist’s life organized by the Paul Robeson Cultural Center, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, 1994-1998.           

The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, an exhibition of photographs commemorating the 30 anniversary of the March. Motel Fine Arts, New York, NY, August 5 - September 15, 1993.

Papers:

Keynote Addresses:

“Lois Mailou Jones in the World,” James A. Porter Memorial Lecture, James A. Porter 20th Anniversary Colloquium, Howard University, Washington, DC, April 17, 2009.

“Visualizing the Slave Trade in Public History,” From Cane Field to Tea Cup: the Impact of the Transatlantic Slave Trade on Art and Design, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, February 22-23, 2007.

“It’s Part of My DNA:” The Embedded Life of the Slave Ship Icon,” Spectacular Fictions: Race and Visual Culture, African Diaspora Area Group, Department of English, University of Maryland, College Park, September 22, 2006.

“The Commercialization of Grief: Katrina, Tourism and Visuality,” Keynote address for the Centre D'Etudes Afro-Américaines annual Black History Month Conference, the Sorbonne, Paris, February 25, 2006.

“To Travel in Her Shoes: Joy Gregory’s Cinderella Tours Europe,” Keynote address for CAMERA-CULTURE/ CAMERA CULTURE: The Camera as Tool to Capture, Confine, Create, Construct Culture, Society for Photographic Education, North East Regional Conference, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, November 11, 2005.

Invited Lectures and Symposia:

“Lois Mailou Jones, a Life in Art as Example,” Black Women in the Ivory Tower Conference, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, March 5, 2009.

“Lois Mailou Jones in the World,” Lois Mailou Jones Textiles Exhibition, Featherstone Center for the Arts, Oak Bluffs, MA, August 20, 2008.

“Curating the Slave Trade: Exhibition, Reenactment, Embodiment,” Closing of the Slave Trades Transatlantic Perspectives: An International Symposium, Queens University, Belfast, Northern Ireland in collaboration with the Gilder Lehrman Center, Yale University, May 29-31, 2008.

“Picturing Black Power!” Philadelphia African American Museum, February 27, 2008.

“The Slave Ship Icon in the Black Atlantic Imagination,” Remembering Slave Trade Abolitions: The Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade in International Perspective, Newcastle University and the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, United Kingdom, November 23-24, 2007.

“Curators and Critics,” Here and Now: African and African American Art Conference, New York University and W.E.B . Du Bois Institute, New York, NY, November 15 – 18, 2007.

“The Middle Passage and the Iconography of the Slave Ship,” The Legacies of Slavery and Emancipation: Jamaica and the Atlantic World, Yale Center for British Art and the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Emancipation and Resistance, New Haven, CT, November 1-3, 2007.

“Judith Wilson’s Spheres of Intervention,” Extended Provocations: New Lectures in Dialogue with the Pioneering Scholarship of Judith Wilson, University of California, Irvine, October 5, 2007.

“Romuald Hazoumé’s La Bouche de Roi,” Resistance and Remembrance: Commemorating the 200th Anniversary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, British Museum, London, March 25, 2007.

“It’s Part of My DNA:” The Embedded Life of the Slave Ship Icon,” W.E.B. Du Bois Colloquium, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, March 14, 2007.

“M=Memory,” Portraits and Progress: Early Photography and the Making of African American Identity, Duke University, Durham, NC, March 3, 2007.

“It’s Part of My DNA:” The Embedded Life of the Slave Ship Icon,” Out of Sight: New World Slavery and the Visual Imagination, History of Art Department, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, March 2, 2007.

 “It’s Part of My DNA:” The Embedded Life of the Slave Ship Icon,” 27th Anniversary Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series, Institute on Ethnicity, Culture and the Modern Experience, Rutgers University, Newark, February 17, 2007.

“Of Golden Anniversaries and Bicentennials: the Convergence of Memory, Tourism, and National History in Ghana in 2007,” Slavery and Public History, An International Symposium, Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition, Yale University, November 2-4, 2006.

“The Art of Lorna Simpson,” Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, February 9, 2006.

“Roots Tourism and Memory Politics,” Framing the Triangle, New York University in Ghana Inaugural Conference on Visual Art and Culture, Ashesi University, Accra, September 27, 2005.

“The Influence of African Art on African American Artists,” US Embassy, Dakar and the Universite Cheikh Anta Diop, Zigonchor and Dakar, Senegal, May 24 and May 26 2005.

“To Travel in Her Shoes: Joy Gregory’s Cinderella Tours Europe,” Prof. Hazel Carby’s seminar, Yale University, New Haven, CT, March 29, 2005.

“Authenticating Dungeons, Whitewashing Castles,” Mostra Pan Africana de Arte Contemporanea, Museu de Arte Moderna, Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, March 20, 2005.
                                   
“The Arts After Colonialism and the History of Suffering,” Black Atlantic: Traveling Cultures, Counter-Memories, Networked Identities, House of World Cultures, Berlin, Germany, November 14, 2004.

“The Diasporic Element: Expanding the Definition of African American,” Panel co-chair with Salah M. Hassan, Bridging the Gaps: African American Art Conference, W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro American Research, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, November 5-7, 2004.

“Globalization and Visual Art,” Yari Yari Pamberi Black Women Writers Dissecting Globalization, An International Conference on Literature by Women of African Ancestry, New York University Institute of African-American Affairs and Africana Studies Program in collaboration with the Organization of Women Writers of Africa, NYU, October 12-16, 2004.

“Black Women, Labor and the Landscape,” The Meaning of Work in the Lives of Women of Color, Afro-American Studies Department in collaboration with the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, Rockefeller Study and Conference Center, Bellagio, Italy, August 2-6, 2004.

“James Presley Ball’s Legacy for African American Art and Culture,” Cincinnati Museum Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, June 14, 2004.

“Memorialization as Mediation,” Mediated Images: the 2004 National Graduate Seminar, Columbia University School of the Arts and The Photography Institute, Columbia University, New York City, June 5-19, 2004.

“The Visual Politics of Memorialization,” Visual Culture Colloquium, History of Art Department, Cornell University, April 5, 2004.

“Teaching Black Visual Culture: The Case of the Slave Ship Icon in the Black Atlantic Imagination,” James A. Porter Colloquium, Howard University, Washington, DC, April 18, 2003.

“The Practice of Remembrance in Contemporary African Diaspora Art,” the John Hope Franklin Humanities Seminar, Duke University, Durham, NC, March 20, 2003.

 “Never Forgive, Never Forget? Political Resistance and the Slave Ship Icon in late 20th Century African Diaspora Art and Culture,” Department of Art History, Duke University, Durham, NC, March 19, 2003.

Academic Conference Papers:

“Teaching African American Visual Culture,” The Future of Black Studies, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and Princeton University, New York, February 8, 2003.

“Authenticating Dungeons, Whitewashing Castles,” Tourism of Architecture/The Architecture of Tourism, College Art Association Annual Conference, Philadelphia, PA, February 2002.

“Never Forgive, Never Forget? Political Resistance and the Slave Ship Icon in Late 20th Century African Diaspora Art,” The Political Image: XXV International Colloquium on the History of Art, Instituto de Investigaciones Esteticas, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, 30 November – 5 December 2001.                       

"Diaspora Politics and the Making of an Art Exhibition," Diasporas africaines dans l'ancien et le nouveau monde: conscience et imaginaire, Conference organized by Equip Diaspora de l'Institut d' Anglais Charles V, Universite Paris 7 - Denis Diderot et Cercle d'Etudes Afro Americaines, Paris, France 26-28 October 2000.

"Making Memory: Tourism, Monuments and Museums in the African Diaspora," Monuments of the Black Atlantic: History, Memory and Politics, Council on African American Research Conference, Williamsburg, Virginia, 24-27 May 2000.

“A Theology of Remembrance,” Faculty Fellows Luncheon, Institute for the Advanced Study of Religion, Yale University, April 10, 2002.

"Some Thoughts on Quaker Theology and Early Versions of the Slave Ship Icon," Conference of Pew Fellows, Yale University, 4-6 May 2000.

"Racialized Remembrance: Identity Politics and Cultural Heritage Tourism in Ghana." Center for the Study of Race, Inequality and Politics, Institute for Social Policy Studies, Yale University, February 15, 2000.                                                                                                                       
"Reinventing the Past/(Re) creating Identity: The Slave Ship Icon in the Black Atlantic Imagination." Identities. Association of Art Historians of England Annual Conference, Exeter, April 4, 1998.

"Trans-Atlantic Messengers of the Cause: The Currency of Abolitionist Art and Artifacts." Mapping Race: Bodies of Knowledge, Boundaries of Difference.  History Department Graduate Student Conference, Yale University, May 9-10, 1997.

"Trans-Atlantic Messengers of the Cause: The Currency of Abolitionist Art and Artifacts." Mapping African America. Collegium for African American Research Biennial Conference, Liverpool, England, April 24-26, 1997.

"Trans-Atlantic Messengers of the Cause: The Currency of Abolitionist Art and Artifacts." Expanding the Visual Field. Annual Art History Graduate Symposium, University of Southern California, April 4, 1997.

"Trans-Atlantic Messengers of the Cause: The Currency of Abolitionist Art and Artifacts." Critical Chaos: The Positioning of Visual Culture within Art History. 16th Annual Art History Graduate Symposium, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, March 1, 1997.

Moderator and Panel Organizer. First Annual Berenice Abbott Lectures on Women and Photography. New School for Social Research and Parsons School of Design, New York, NY, September 24, 1996.

Gallery and Museum Lectures on Photography:

“Buying at Auction/Collecting African Americana,” Studio Museum in Harlem/Swann Galleries, New York, February 23, 2004.

“Collecting African American Photography,” Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, December 1, 2003.

“Buying at Auction/Collecting African Americana,” Studio Museum in Harlem/Swann Galleries, New York, February 21, 2003.

“Collecting African American Photography,” Studio Museum in Harlem, December 1, 2002.

"Art A La Carte," Imaging African Art Exhibition Gallery Talk, Yale Art Gallery, 17 May 2000.

"Alfred Stieglitz and the Equivalent: Reinventing the Nature of Photography." Yale University Art Gallery, November 9 and 11, 1999.

"The Fine Art of Collecting Photography." Photo Santa Fe, July 21, 1995.

 “Exposure to Careers in the Arts,” Stewart Hobson Middle School, Washington, DC, 1994.

Moderator and Panel Organizer, Second Annual Symposium on Collecting Photography, Center for Photography at Woodstock, 1994.

Panelist, First Annual Symposium on Collecting Photography. Center for Photography at Woodstock, 1993.

Service At Cornell:

Society for the Humanities, Humanities Council, 2009-2012
Faculty in Residence, Clara Dickson Hall, 2009-2012
Member of Graduate Field, Africana Studies and Research Center
Member of Graduate Field, Visual Studies
Member of Graduate Field, Theatre, Film and Dance Department
Coordinator for A.D. White Professor-at-Large, Lowery Stokes-Sims, 2006-2010
Faculty Advisor, Visual Culture Colloquium, History of Art Department, Fall 2007, 2009-2010
Faculty Advisor, Graduate Student Symposium, History of Art Department, 2009-2010
Faculty Advisor, Mellon-Mays Undergraduate Research Assistantship, 2003-2004, 2006-2007
Conference co-organizer, “Strange Fruit: Lynching Visuality and Empire,” Africana Studies and             Research Center and Society for the Humanities, March 11-12, 2006
Coordinator, History of Art Department Findley Lecture with Robert Farris Thompson, 2006

Academic Advising:
Undergraduate Honors Theses

Charita Gainey, “Images in the Poetry of Elizabeth Alexander” (2004)
Amanda J. Colon, “Blaxploitation Cinema” (2007)
Emily Newton, “The Photographs of Walker Evans” (2009)



Graduate Committees:

Amanda Gilvin (chair) “The Exhibition and Circulation of Nigerian Art, 1920 to the Present”
Bernida Webb-Binder (chair) “Expanding the Diaspora: Contemporary Pacific Islands Art”
Claire Bess Sudolsky (chair) “The Katrina Diaspora and the Spectacle of Race”
Yayoi Koizumi (member) “Japanese Manga and Contemporary Japanese Negrophilia”

Courses Taught:

Cornell University:

• Contemporary African Diaspora Art
• Black International Visual and Literary Cultures
• African American Cinema
• African American Art
• Blaxploitation Film and Photography
• The Art Market
• Exhibiting Cultures: Museums, Monuments, Representation, Display
• The Black Arts Movement: Art, Literature, Film and Music (taught in the classroom and as distance learning course during winter and summer term)
• The Museum and the Object
• African American Expatriates: Artists and Intellectuals Abroad

Harvard University:

• The Black Arts Movement: Art, Literature, Film and Music
• Exhibiting Cultures: Museums, Monuments, Representation, Display

Wellesley College:

• Memory and Identity in Contemporary African Diaspora Art
• The Location of Blackness: Space, Landscape and Place in African Diaspora Art and Visual Culture
• Exhibiting Cultures: Representation and Display in the 20th             Century Museum
• Art 101: Lectures on African, African American, African Diaspora Art in team-taught survey of Western Art

“Slavery in the Artistic, Literary, and Historical Imagination,” Deborah McDowell and John
Stauffer, co-chairs, Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition,
Yale University, 2004-2006.           

Resource Development Team, American Social History Project, Center for Media & Learning, Graduate Center, City University of New York, 2006-2008.

“Photographic Memory Workshop,” founding co-chair with Laura Wexler, Yale University, 1998-present.

“Black Women and Work Collective,” Sharon Harley and A. Lynn Bolles, co-chairs, University of Maryland, College Park, 2004.


                       
Previous Professional Experience:

Arts Resource Consortium, New York, NY, Independent Consultant, 1993-1995
Founded a consulting firm to provide appraisal, curatorial and collection management services. Specialized in 19th and 20th century photographs. Appraisal services encompassed charitable donation, insurance, marketing and estate valuations.  Curator and registrar for private collectors, corporations, institutions and artists.

Penelope A. Dixon & Associates, New York, NY, Associate Appraiser, 1988-1992
Prepared appraisals of 19th and 20th century photographs for donation, insurance and estate purposes. Conducted price analysis in auction and retail markets. Researched copyright laws.

Brent Sikkema Fine Art, New York, NY, Assistant Director, 1989-1990
Managed daily operations of art gallery specializing in photography. Assisted with development of monthly gallery exhibitions, including press release preparation and artist development.

Commerce Graphics Ltd, Inc., E. Rutherford, NJ, Curator, Berenice Abbott Archive, 1986-1989
Curator of Berenice Abbott photography collection numbering over 10,000 prints and negatives.  Organized over 25 exhibitions of Abbott's work.  Catalogued prints, negatives, letters and artifacts.  Prepared donations of photographs from the archive to museums and universities. 
                                                                                                                                               
Polaroid Corporale Archives, Cambridge, MA, Assistant to the Archivist, 1986
Catalogued and researched photographs, letters and artifacts in the corporate collection.

Consulting and Advisory Service:

• Advisor, “Reflections in Black,” documentary produced by Deborah Willis and Thomas Allen Harris, 2007.
• Advisory Board Member, Center for Photography at Woodstock, 1991-1996.
• Chair, Annual Benefit Auction, Center for Photography at Woodstock, 1991-1995.
• Picture researcher for television, fiction and documentary films.  Credits include An American Dream: The Jackson Family Story (1992); Posse (1993); and Them Damn Pictures! (1995).
• Project Director/Registrar, Dr. Clarence L. Holte African Diaspora Book Collection, numbering over 4,500 rare and contemporary books. New York, NY, 1991-1992.

Extramural Fellowship Evaluations:

Joyce Wein Prize, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, New York.
David C. Driskell Prize in African American Art and Art History, High Museum of Art, Atlanta.
Art Matters Grants to Contemporary Artists, New York, New York.

African American and African Diaspora Art and Visual Culture 1619 to the present; Cultural Memory Theory; History of Photography 1839 to the present; the Art Market; Museum Studies; Heritage Tourism; Sub-Saharan African Architecture.

Spanish, fluent
Portuguese, reading proficiency
French, reading and conversational proficiency
Italian, reading knowledge

African Studies Association,
American Studies Association
College Art Association
Collegium for African American Research
Society for Cinema Studies           

Boards:

The Deloach Group, New York, New York
Tosca Photography Fund, London, United Kingdom

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