🎙️ Black Faculty Salon

April 21, 2022

Cite Black Barnard’s inaugural Faculty Salon featured esteemed Barnard Professors Monica L. Miller and Kim F. Hall.

Monica L. Miller

Monica L. Miller, Professor of English and Africana Studies, joined the faculty of Barnard in 2001. Professor Miller specializes in African-American and American literature and cultural studies. Her research interests include twentieth- and twenty-first-century African-American literature, film, and contemporary art; contemporary literature and cultural studies of the black diaspora; performance studies; and intersectional studies of race, gender, and sexuality. Her book, Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity, was published by Duke University Press in 2009. It received the 2010 William Sanders Scarborough Prize for the best book in African American literature and culture from the Modern Language Association; it was shortlisted for the 2010 Modernist Studies Association book prize. Professor Miller is the recipient of grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (2012, 2001), the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (2004), and Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation (2004). She served as a Term Fellow at Institute for Research in African American Studies, Columbia University (2011-13). She was the recipient of the Gladys Brooks Junior Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award, Barnard College (2008). She is currently at work on Blackness, Swedish Style: Figuring Blackness in a Place without Race, which is a multi-genre investigation of multiculturalism, integration, and Afro-Swedishness in relation to Black European Studies and theories of diaspora and diasporic belonging. Documenting and theorizing the emergence of “blackness” in a place that has no obvious or well-developed colonial or imperial history, Blackness Swedish Style thinks differently about “diaspora” and the identities that emerge from it. Investigating connections and disconnections between Europe, Sweden and its African Diaspora, as well as among AfroSwedes themselves, this book is a diverse volume consisting of theory, ethnography, memoir, (oral) history, and contemporary cultural criticism.

EnglishAfricana Studies

Kim F. Hall

Kim F. Hall is Lucyle Hook Professor of English and Professor of Africana Studies at Barnard College. Her research covers Renaissance/Early Modern Literature and Culture, Critical Race Theory, Black Feminist Studies, Slavery Studies, Visual Culture, Food Studies, and Digital Humanities. She has been recognized for her approach to both learning and scholarship, having been awarded a Tow Award for Innovative Pedagogy in 2015 and named one of the 25 “Women Making a Difference in Higher Education and Beyond” by Diverse Issues in Higher Education in 2016.

Africana StudiesEnglishMedieval & Renaissance Studies

Kim F. Hall: People recognizing that writing takes space and giving you space is a huge thing and it’s something that on college campuses we faculty might take for granted, but it’s hard to come by. People support your writing in all kinds of ways, and they don’t have to be fellow writers to do that.

Throughout the evening, the scholars shared reflections on navigating the world of academia as Black women scholars.

Their discussion ranged across topics, from the injustices and possibilities of the archive, to developing a framework that centers Black people and their humanity, to the importance of rest and community in fighting burnout.

Both speakers also shed light into their individual research and academic interests, from Prof. Miller’s work on fashion, Black identity, and the literary; to Prof. Hall’s Black feminist approach to early modern English texts.

Monica L. Miller: Yes, I was interested in the theory, but it’s always about the people. So part of my writing process is making sure I’m always attending to that. Especially when you write about fashion, which people think is frivolous. It’s really important to think about how it matters to the people.

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Watch the recording here

Thank you to our sponsors

Thank you also to the Center for Engaged Pedagogy, the Barnard Center for Research on Women, and the Writing Center for their partnership.

Special shoutout to Jennifer Rosales, Melissa Wright, DaMonique Ballou, and Avi Cummings for their support.

And special thanks to the committee that selected the Cite Black Barnard Initiative as a recipient of a Provost’s Innovation in Teaching—Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion grant.