My teaching invites students to examine the histories of ideas that shape the intellectual, religious, political, and aesthetic traditions that have guided Black life across diaspora.
My courses are organized around questions rather than simply bodies of knowledge. Whether studying Black religious innovation in Chicago, transnational freedom movements, Black film, or aesthetic theory, I invite students to investigate the ideas, histories, and cultural practices that have shaped Black life across the African diaspora. Through close reading, discussion, writing, and experiential learning, students develop the interpretive tools necessary to engage enduring questions about religion, freedom, democracy, representation, and social transformation.
See sample syllabi below.
Black Religion and Chicago
An experiential exploration of Black religious life within and alongside investigations of cultural Chicago that examines the city's communities and institutions as living archives of Black intellectual, cultural, and political history.
Black Aesthetic Thought
An interdisciplinary seminar investigating how Black artists, writers, musicians, and performers have theorized the meaning, purpose, and political possibilities of Black art and aesthetic expression.
Black Freedom Movements
A transnational study of Black freedom struggles that situates African American history within the broader histories of the African diaspora, anti-colonial movements, and global struggles for justice and liberation.
Black Cinema
An examination of Black film as a site of historical memory, cultural critique, and artistic innovation, tracing how cinema has shaped and challenged representations of Black life across time.