RESEARCH & TEACHING

FROM SAINTS TO SINNERS: Blackness and The Arts

FALL 2026
Black Studies Department, City College of New York
 

A survey of representations of Blackness within the Atlantic world from medieval and early modern images of Black Saints such as St. Maurice the patron of Savoy France and the masterful Benin bronzes that adorned the Oba’s ancestral altars during the height of the slave trade to descriptive colonial travelogues and paintings of Caribbean ceremonies and contemporary film, music, and visual culture . The course covers pivotal epochs in Atlantic history and considers each example of art in relation to the political economy of labor, gender, class, caste, and place. The course explores the political and social work that Blackness and concepts of religiosity perform in each epoch.

WITCHES, BRUJAS & VOUDOU QUEENS: Afro-Atlantic Religious History, Gender, Law and Environment

SPRING 2026
Black Studies Department, City College of New York

An examination of Afro-Atlantic religious histories through the figures of witches, brujas, and Vodou/Vodún queens, foregrounding questions of colonialism, law, environment, gender, and power. Drawing on anthropology, geography and religious studies texts as well as historical case studies, this course will look at the ways African and earth-based spiritual systems typically glossed as “witchcraft” have been recreated, criminalized and re-legitimized within the context of capitalism, empire, enslavement, postcolonial nation building, pop culture movements, and a radical transformation in our societal relationship to the land.

AFRICAN HERITAGE IN THE CARIBBEAN & BRAZIL

FALL 2026
Black Studies Department, City College of New York

An introductory course examining African diasporic formations through history, culture, and political economy, emphasizing African continuities, colonial governance, and hemispheric connections.