E. Frederic Morrow Associate Professor of Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies and Africana Studies Michele Reid-Vazquez is an Endowed Chair in Race, Racism, and Racial Justice and Associate Professor, jointly appointed in the Department of Africana Studies and the Program in Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies at Bowdoin College. She specializes in the history of slavery, freedom, revolution, and Black mobilities in the 19th-century Caribbean, 20th-century U.S. Afro-Latinx community formation and civil rights, and Digital Humanities. She is the author of The Year of the Lash: Free People of Color in Cuba and the Atlantic World, with articles in journals and edited collections. Her current book project, Black Mobilities in the Age of Revolution, explores the multi-layered mobilities enslaved and free people of color in Jamaica and the Caribbean Atlantic world deployed in the aftermath of the Haitian Revolution in pursuit of freedom and equality. Additional projects examine race and mobility in the Spanish and French Caribbean in the revolutionary era, Black digital practice through Afro-Latinx podcasts, and Afro-Latinx-focused digital humanities and faculty and student professional development. As founder and director of the Afrolatinidad Studies Institute, she advances transnational and interdisciplinary research, education, digital humanities, and professional development in the global arenas of Afro-Latin American Afro-Latinx studies. Examples include serving as executive producer and host of the Dialogues in Afrolatinidad podcast, which will launch its fourth season in September 2024; directing the Transnational Dialogues in Afro-Latin American and Afro-Latinx Studies 2022 Summer Institute, the first of its kind funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute; convening “Representations of Afrolatinidad” conferences in 2019 and 2023; and directing the Afro-Cuban History and Culture Program with the University of Havana (2015-2019). She is currently developing the anthology, Afrolatinidades: Transnational Connections in Afro-Latin American and Afro-Latinx Studies, co-edited with Danielle Terrazas Williams (University of Leeds), Victor Figuereo (University of Pittsburgh) and Zuly Inirio (Afro-Latinx Song and Opera Project), to critically examine key hemispheric issues linking Afro-Latinx communities as they create, sustain, and transform meanings surrounding Blackness in political, social, and cultural contexts, along with a companion website. From 2021-23, she served as founding director of the Center for Ethnic Studies Research at the University of Pittsburgh, leading a dynamic staff of 12 professionals and students. In collaboration with scholars in Africana Studies, Public Health, Education, and the library, she led an investigative team in examining local African American, African Diaspora, Asian American, 2 and Latinx communities’ linked histories of race, migration, education, and healthcare, and contributed to a narrative podcast series highlighting each group. She also created a faculty research incubator to foster interdisciplinary collaboration. Her scholarly and partnered activities have been supported by over sixty other grants, including the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright Commission, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. In 2023, she garnered the Creating a Just Community Award in recognition of outstanding efforts at the University of Pittsburgh in creating a more just, equitable, and inclusive community. She also works in partnership with universities to provide educational consulting on video curriculum and scholarly podcasting development. |
