Principal Faculty
- Title
- Associate Professor
- Division Humanities Division
- Department
- Critical Race and Ethnic Studies
- Affiliations Music Department, Digital Arts and New Media, Film and Digital Media Department, Literature Department
- Website
- Office Location
- Farm Bee Shed, TBD
- Mail Stop Critical Race and Ethnic Studies
- Courses CRES 113 Music + Performance, CRES 202 Ecopoetics + Ecoaesthetics, CRES 188B Topics in Black Studies: Pleasure
Research Interests
Black Poetry and Poetics, Aesthetics, Global Black Music, Performances, Love, Black Fugitivity, Ancestral Trauma, Grief, Jealousy, Addiction, Mestiza Consciousness, Pleasure, Ancient Civilizations, Entheogens, Ritual, Mysticisms, Kundalini Yoga, and other Sacred Indigenous Technologies. In prior research, I studied the interplay of orality and literacy in Western civilization, specifically the polarity of bureaucracy and creativity, and radical reassertions of word, sound, and sense practiced among Black and Brown people as collective performances towards freedom. In current research, I am studying intimacy and rites of passage in Pre-Colombian Mesoamerica and the Caribbean. I am interested in the recurrence of various primordial symbols embedded in contemporary Black and Indigenous art and how the ancestors communicate cosmic messages with and through music in motifs such as the drum, fire, air, honey, mycelium, and cannabis. I am interested in working closely with graduate students who have interest in any of the areas mentioned above, directly, and in blurred ways too.
Teaching Interests
I teach undergraduate and graduate courses that explore Global Black Music, Black Poetry and Poetics, Aesthetics, Performance, Depth Psychology, Creative-Critical Research Methods, Land-Based and Somatic Rituals, Emotional and Mental Wellness, and the spiritual/creative uses of Entheogens in building sustainable communal futures.
