"As a researcher passionate about understanding the nuances of human interactions, I am truly honored to receive a grant from the National Science Foundation. This funding opens the door to a journey of exploration into the dynamics of cross-gender interracial interactions, with a specific lens on the intersectionality of women of color and white men." - Daryl Wout.

Black History and Culture in John Jay Books

In Consequential Museum Spaces, Bettina Carbonell, Associate Professor of English, examines how African American history and culture is—and historically has been—represented in culturally specific and mainstream museums. Dr. Carbonell argues that African American museums provide a corrective history that is both argumentative and pragmatic: these museums educate and enlighten, and they seek to effect change. Recurring themes examined here include settlement narratives, key movements, and individuals in political, social, and military history.



Register here to attend her book talk on April 10 in the Moot Court sponsored by OAR.

Crystal Leigh Endsley, Associate Professor of Africana Studies has published a new book titled Quantum Justice. The book explores how girls from eight global communities in Africa express their identity, address social issues, and navigate political policies through spoken word poetry.

Dr. Endsley, who has worked with the black community to

reinforce the importance of inclusivity and understanding African history draws from her experiences in facilitating workshops for girls across the globe to examine how spoken word poetry becomes a platform for them to share experiences, dreams, and strategies for survival and growth. Quantum justice, blends poetry, discourse analysis, and more to explores the girls' relationships on a global scale.

Associate Professor of English, Adam McKible's new book, Circulating Jim Crow: The Saturday Evening Post and the War Against Black Modernity, challenges the nostalgic perception of the iconic publication, the Saturday Evening Post, revealing its deep-seated connections to racist ideologies during the Jim Crow era. Dr. McKible's research shifts focus to the Harlem Renaissance, exposing the magazine's insidious approach to portraying African Americans during a transformative era. This research prompts a reevaluation of media history, urging society to confront uncomfortable truths of the complexities surrounding racial inequalities. Read more about the book in an interview with OAR here.

In 2011, the American Library Association awarded Victoria Bond, Lecturer in English, the Coretta Scott King-John Steptoe Award for New Talent for her novel Zora & Me. Over a decade later, the first Zora & Me novel, inspired by the childhood of African-American luminary Zora Neale Hurston, has been joined by two more books in the series. In December 2023, Bond's novel was featured as a clue on Jeopardy in the Black Crime Fiction category, as its trilogy is a mystery series focusing on history's crimes in a special context: one of the first all-Black incorporated towns in the U.S., Eatonville, Florida, Zora Neale Hurston's hometown. Bond says of her work and its impact, especially during Black History Month:

"It's been one of the greatest honors of my life to write about someone as iconic and iconoclastic as Hurston. But I consider it my calling to write novels about Black kids in history. Especially because what kids are allowed to read is so contested, and truthful tellings of African-American history are under assault in school districts across America right now, I feel writing honestly for kids about the African-American experience is more important than ever."  

Bond has also won the North East Slavery Records Index Research Award, which she used to conduct research on a novel set in 1851.

Gloria J. Browne-Marshall, an Emmy Award-winning writer, civil rights attorney, playwright, and professor of Constitutional Law and African Studies, gave a keynote address titled Use of Art in Advocacy at the "9th Annual C. Clyde Ferguson Jr. Symposium" hosted by Howard University School of Law. She also served as the Mistress of Ceremony during the introduction of the new postage stamp featuring Constance Baker Motley.

Funded by the Office for the Advancement of Research, Dr. Browne-Marshall traveled to Angola to conduct research for her documentary film Before 1619: She Took Justice as well as research for her most recent book She Took Justice: The Black Woman, Law, and Power.

The 2023 Impact Research magazine featured Maureen Allwood and her research challenging the generalization of PTSD symptoms among survivors. Focusing on individual experiences, the study reveals insights into the differential impact of gun, knife, and physical assaults, with Black participants reporting higher PTSD symptoms from gun victimization, emphasizing the need for precision in interventions.



In the past, Dr. Allwood has looked at the role played by PTSD symptoms and poor sleep in mediating the relationship between exposure to community violence and a lower GPA in her article "Community Violence Exposure and Academic Performance: Examining the Roles of Post-traumatic Stress Symptoms and Sleep Quantity and Quality among College Students."

Denise Thompson, Associate Professor in the Department of Public Management and the former director of the MPA Inspection and Oversight Program, is currently focused on two critical areas: 1) her work as a core team member who helped develop and is now working to implement a Cross-CUNY $2M NYC EJA Climate and Environmental Justice Grant and 2) CUNY Career Success Fellowship working to push the Chancellor’s vision to improve student outcomes through career readiness, through the CUNY Office of Transformation.

Her publications include her 2019 book with Routledge, titled Disaster Risk Governance: Four Cases from Developing Countries, and an agenda-setting article titled "The COVID-19 response: considerations for future humanitarian supply chain and logistics management research."

She is also the inaugural recipient of the Jeremy Colleymore Award for humanitarian work in the Caribbean. 

Lisa Farrington, Distinguished Professor and founding Chair Emeritus of the Art & Music Department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, has completed a book for the University of California Press, titled " Black Artists: In Their Own Words," a narrated anthology of key manifestos, diaries, letters, speeches, essays, and articles written by the most renowned black artists of the past 120 years. The book is part of a 35-year ongoing series called "Documents of 20th Century Art" that had not, until recently, included any Black Artists. Dr. Farrington has also delivered a lecture on "The World Before Racism" given to standing-room-only audiences at museums and universities around the world, including John Jay, which will at last appear in Ebook form, published by the Artists Book Foundation with contributions by John Jay's Professor Erin Thompson and CUNY Distinguished Professor Emeritus Jack Flam. Through art alone, it chronicles the amazing history of race relations between Africans and Europeans before the onset of racism. (Fall 2024)

She has also appeared in two BBC documentaries: Becoming Frida about artist Frida Kahlo and Disco: Soundtrack of a Revolution" about the gay and Black roots of the Disco Movement, given lectures on art at the San Antonio Museum, and for Northwell Hospitals; and written essays on African American Art for the Smithsonian, the Woman's Art Journal, the London Print Quarterly, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Atiba Rougier, a full-time Lecturer in the Anthropology Department, started a journey at John Jay College nine years ago, in the fall of 2015, following his return from fieldwork in Bhopal, India. As a philosophical anthropologist, Dr. Rougier currently instructs four courses: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (ANT 101—two sections), Death and Dying in Society (ANT 240), and Urban Anthropology (ANT 208). Over the past seventeen years, Dr. Rougier has dedicated his research to the Grenadian Revolution and collective memory.

In April 2023, he was interviewed by the Washington Post as a research consultant for a seven-part series commemorating the 40th anniversary of the fall of the Grenadian Revolution on October 19, 1983, marked by the execution of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop. His second book was published last summer, Anthropology in the Making: A Reader. 

''I am a Black man. I am a Queer man. I am an athlete, essayist, researcher, and raggamuffin who loves anthropology and philosophy. I am honored to be featured in this special issue of the newsletter celebrating Black History Month. Black students at JJC have the lowest retention rates and I am hoping to actively remedy this statistic by continuing to be devoted to #studentsuccess by remaining dedicated to anthropology—as a way of life. By having my research featured this month, I hope it can act as an inspiration for others and as a source of hope—and possibility." - Atiba Rougier.

Robert Visani, Associate Professor

Department of Art and Music has studied the intersection of technology, identity, and history through a unique blend of reinterpretation and physical sculpture. Using a combination of digital and traditional tools, Professor Visani explores the anonymity shaped by technology and its impact on our sense of self.

His recent body of work, the cardboard slave kit, reimagines iconic historical imagery of enslaved individuals through digital fabrication and repositions them as larger-than-life cardboard sculptures, do-it-yourself flat pack kits, and laser cut drawings.  The project reforms our engagement with the original works to one that is more complex and empathetic through an extended hands-on, creative process and raises complex issues around technology, representation, and slavery today.

In 2022 several sculptures and drawings from this series were included in his solo exhibition Form / Reform at the Brattleboro Museum. He will be participating in a group exhibition titled Gallery Voyage One from Feb. 18th – Mar. 24th at Kearny Point in Kearny, NJ. He is also currently creating two new slave kits. The first is based on a sculpture by Edmonia Lewis titled Forever Free, and the other is based on an illustration of a “runaway slave” commonly printed in pre-civil war advertisements.  

Visit www.robertovisani.com to read more about Professor Visani's work.

As you prepare to commemorate Black History Month in your classroom, consider reading materials from Learning For Justice: Do's and Don'ts of Teaching Black History and Black History Month is Over. Now What? to ensure students get the most out of Black history lessons.

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And keep us up-to-date on your latest, by emailing oar@jjay.cuny.edu!