Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University has announced the 2021-2022 class of fellows.
“We are happy to welcome an extraordinary cohort of W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute Fellows,” says Gates. “We look forward to an inspiring range of projects next academic year. The spiritual capacity of jazz; art and race in the 19th century; bioethical constraint on technoscience; the life of a fugitive slave and sparse archives; W. E. B. Du Bois and the revitalization of sociology; hiphop, technology, and architecture; the musical thought of Du Bois; comparative historical linguistics, African Atlantic intellectual history, and modernity; a multimedia, interactive project on Ancient Nubia; necropolitics and living-death in Cairo; Afrofeminism and assimilation in France; the Zimbabwe International Book Fair and sexual politics; the history of Hiphop production; Brazilian Black queer artivists and decolonization; the prehistory of British Black Arts; and the state of Afro-Colombia Studies are among the topics that the 2021-2022 Class of Fellows will be addressing at the W. E. B Du Bois Research Institute, housed in the Hutchins Center.”
The W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute Fellows and their projects are as follows:
• Dwight Andrews is Professor of Music Theory and African American Music at Emory University and Senior Minister of First Congregational United Church of Christ in Atlanta. In residence as a Hutchins Fellow for the 2021-2022 academic year, Andrews will be at work on Religion, Spirituality, and Jazz.
• Susanna Ashton is Professor of English, Clemson University. In residence as the W. E. B. Du Bois Fellow for Spring 2022, Ashton will be at work on A Plausible Man: The Life of John Andrew Jackson.
• David Bindman is Emeritus Professor of the History of Art at University College London. In residence as the Image of the Black Archive & Library Fellow for the 2021-2022 academic year, Bindman will be at work on Art and Race in the 19th Century as well as on The Image of the Black in Latin America and the Caribbean, which he is co-editing with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Alejandro de la Fuente.
• Adoulou N. Bitang is Head of the Office of Cultural Clubs at the Directorate of Students Affairs of the University of Douala, Cameroon. In residence as the Edmond J. Safra/Hutchins Center Joint Fellow for the 2021-2022 academic year, Bitang will be at work on From Biotechnology to the threat of ‘Bioindustry’. On the Social, Political and Philosophical Necessity for a Bioethical Constraint on Technoscience in the 21st Century.
• Michael Burawoy is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. In residence as a Hutchins Fellow for the 2021-2022 academic year, Burawoy will be at work on Conversations with W. E. B. Du Bois.
• Mark Jon Burford is the R. P. Wollenberg Professor of Music at Reed College. In residence as a Sheila Biddle Ford Foundation Fellow for Spring 2022, Burford will be at work on And the World Whistled in His Ears:W. E .B. Du Bois and Music.
• Sekou Cooke is Assistant Professor of Architecture at Syracuse University. In residence as a Nasir Jones Hiphop Fellow for the 2021-2022 academic year, Cooke will be at work on 3D Turntables Remix:The Architectural Technology of Hip-Hop.
• Kathryn de Luna is the Provost’s Distinguished Associate Professor of History at Georgetown University. In residence as a Sheila Biddle Ford Fellow for the 2021-2022 academic year, de Luna will be at work on Resounding Convergences: Toward an Atlantic in Terms of Africa.
• Rita Freed is the John F. Cogan Jr. and Mary L. Cornille Chair Emerita of the Department of Ancient Egyptian, Nubian and Near Eastern Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In residence as the Richard D. Cohen Fellow for the 2021-2022 academic year, Freed will be at work on Art and Majesty of Ancient Nubia:An Interactive, Evidence-Based, Comprehensive Book with Accompanying Interactive Materials.
• Marwa Ghazali is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Museum Studies at Central Washington University. In residence as a Genevieve McMillan-Reba Stewart Fellow for the 2021-2022 academic year, Ghazali will be at work on City of Living-Death: Urban Transformation, Violence, and Social Suffering in an Egyptian Cemetery.
• Silyane Larcher is a Research Fellow in Political Science at the French National Center for Scientific Research, Paris. In residence as a Genevieve McMillan-Reba Stewart Fellow for the 2021-2022 academic year, Larcher will be at work on Afrofeminist Utopia. Fulfilling oneself while facing assimilationist racism in France.
• Tadiwanashe F. Madenga is a Doctoral Candidate in African and African American Studies at Harvard University. In residence as a Dorothy Porter & Charles Harris Wesley Fellow with support from the J. D. Manyika Fellowshp Fund for the 2021-2022 academic year, Madenga will be at work on The Zimbabwe International Book Fair: Literature, Public Display and Erotic Liberty.
• Wendel Patrick is Assistant Professor at The Peabody Music Conservatory at the Johns Hopkins University. In residence as a Nasir Jones Hiphop Fellow for the 2021-2022 academic year, Patrick will be at work on From Analog to Digital and Back (...And Beyond). Hip Hop Production's Journey Through Time and Space.
• Tanya L. Saunders is Associate Professor at the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Florida. In residence as a Mark Claster Mamolen Fellow for Spring 2022, Saunders will be at work on Estéticas do Bapho: Queering Black Brazilian Artivism and Politics of Liberation.
• James Smethurst is Professor at the W. E. B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In residence as the Stuart Hall Fellow for the 2021-2022 academic year, Smethurst will be at work on British Black Arts, U.S. Black Arts and the Black Arts International.
• Aurora Vergara-Figueroa is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Universidad Icesi, Colombia. In residence as a Mark Claster Mamolen Fellow for Fall 2021, Vergara-Figueroa will be at work on Afrocolombian Studies: Essential Readings and a memoir of Aristóbulo Vergara Montoya.
The W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute Fellowship program invites scholars, artists, public intellectuals, and activists across the humanities and social sciences to pursue independent projects encompassing Africa and its diasporas. Fellows arrive from the U.S., Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Europe to be in residence at the Hutchins Center for either a full academic year or one semester.
The Hutchins Center for African & African American Research supports work in the history and culture of people of African descent the world over and provides a forum for collaboration and the ongoing exchange of ideas. It seeks to stimulate African and African American studies both at Harvard and beyond, and to increase public awareness and understanding of this vital arena. As the preeminent center in the field, the Hutchins Center sponsors visiting fellows, art exhibitions, publications, research projects, archives, readings, conferences, and new media initiatives that respond to and inspire interest in established and emerging channels of inquiry in Africa and its diasporas.
The Hutchins Center has been closely monitoring the pandemic-related directives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and Harvard University. As needed, the fellowship program can adapt easily to virtual and hybrid formats.