African American Studies
Graduate Coordinator: Professor Theresa Runstedtler
Contact: tr23@buffalo.edu
Working in close alliance with UB's Department of African & African American Studies, our graduate program takes an expansive view of the field, examining the black diaspora in the Americas, along with its connections to the broader black Atlantic and global contexts. UB's faculty and students are interdisciplinary in their approach to African American studies, drawing from the methodologies of History, Literary criticism, Cultural studies, Urban studies, Critical race theory, Labor studies, Sociology, Legal studies, Anthropology, Education, and Political science.
UB Faculty and Graduate Students working in the field of African American Studies
American Studies Core Faculty:
Carl Nightingale: History of race; World history; Urban history
Theresa Runstedtler: Race, gender, and resistance in popular culture; Black transnationalism, Imperialism and globalization; European race relations; Black Canada.
Kari Winter: History and literature of transatlantic slavery; Resistance, dissent, and revolution
American Studies Adjunct Faculty:
Greg Dimitriadis (Education): Critical ethnography; Urban education; Educational policy; Popular culture and Cultural studies; Postcolonial music, art, and literature
Keith Griffler (African & African American Studies): African American and African Diaspora history; Race and labor; the Underground Railroad
Faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences and Professional Schools:
Masani Alexis De Veaux (Global Gender Studies): Black diasporic writing; Black women writers; Black feminist theory
Peter Ekeh (African & African American Studies): African politics and history
Carole Emberton (History): Civil War and Reconstruction; Southern History; Legal History; History of violence, crime and punishment
Christian Flaugh (Romance Languages and Literature): Francophone studies; Négritude; Bodies and normality
Shaun Irlam (Comparative Literature): Postcolonial Studies; African literature and culture; Genocide studies
Lori Johnson (Visual Studies): African and African American Art; Modernism
Y. Lulat (African & African American Studies): Higher education in Africa
Carine Mardorossian (English): Diaspora theory; Postcolonial and Gender studies; Caribbean studies
Teresa Miller (Law School): Prisons and the policies of mass incarceration; the increasing number of people incarcerated in the United States; immigration and detention
Erik Seeman (History): Colonial North America with an emphasis in religion, Indians, African Americans, and death rituals
Claude Welch (Political Science): National and international human rights networks
Lillian Williams (African & African American Studies): African American urban history
Hershini Bhana Young (English): Contemporary black diasporic literature; African-American literature; South African literature
Jason Young (History): The Black Atlantic; Slave culture and religion; pre-colonial Kongo
American Studies Graduate Students
Ph.D.
Kushal K. Bhardwaj
Erika Haygood
Jeffry Iovannone
Jessica Perkins
Stephen J. Smith
Breea C. Willingham
M.A.
Jadaiman Dacosta
Michael Moore
Verdis Robinson
Working Groups at UB
Buffalo Seminar on Racial Justice (Baldy Center)