@Macaulay Faculty Scholars: The Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance (approximately the 1910s through the mid-1930s) is one of the most important eras in African American history, with thrilling innovations in literature, music, stage performance and art whose impacts are still felt today.

Join us for a fun exploration of the Harlem Renaissance with a panel of Macaulay faculty experts moderated by Interim Dean Vanessa K. Valdés. You’ll hear the stories and gain new appreciation for this wonderful global movement that originated right here in New York City.

Dr. Vanessa K. Valdés
Interim Dean

Dr. Vanessa K. Valdés is the Interim Dean of the Macaulay Honors College. She is the former director of the Black Studies Program at The City College of New York-CUNY. A graduate of Yale and Vanderbilt Universities, and a Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, her research interests focus on the cultural production of Black peoples throughout the Americas: the United States and Latin America, including Brazil, and the Caribbean.

Dr. Valdés is the editor of The Future Is Now: A New Look at African Diaspora Studies (2012) and Let Spirit Speak! Cultural Journeys through the African Diaspora (2012). She is the author of Oshun’s Daughters: The Search for Womanhood in the Americas (2014) and Diasporic Blackness: The Life and Times of Arturo Alfonso Schomburg (2017). Her latest book, Racialized Visions: Haiti and the Hispanic Caribbean (2020) is an edited collection that re-centers Haiti in the disciplines of Caribbean, and more broadly, Latin American Studies.

Dr. Norrell Edwards
Professor

Dr. Norrell Edwards completed her doctorate in English literature from the University of Maryland, College Park with a specialization in 20^th and 21^st century Black Diaspora Literature. She has written extensively on Haitian literature, Haitian representation across the diaspora and memory for various peer-reviewed journals and edited collections. Dr. Edwards joins the Macaulay Honors college after finishing her time as Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow at Texas Christian University. Edwards also held a position at Georgetown University where she served as Assistant Director of Education of the Prison and Justice Initiative. Norrell Edwards, Ph.D currently serves as the volunteer director of communications for the Next Step Forward Initiative, a New York-based grassroots organization focused on making progress to eradicate systemic racism; she is also co-host Black Terms . To learn more about Norrell’s work and scholarship, follow her on twitter @Norrellexplains.

Dr. Zohra Saed
Professor

Published poet and editor Dr. Zohra Saed brings expertise in Asian American studies, as well as teaching experience in early college programs at Bard College. She was a Bard Early College OSUN Fellow at the American University of Central Asia in Kyrgyzstan and Al Quds University in Jerusalem. She has been a Fellow at the Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean as well as the Schomburg Center for Black Culture. Dr. Saed is a first-generation New Yorker who grew up in Brooklyn.