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Professor Stephanie Batiste |
Professor Jeffrey C. Stewart, Chair |
The Department of Black Studies welcomes two new faculty members, Professor Stephanie L. Batiste and Professor Jeffrey C. Stewart, who will begin teaching in 2008. Professor Stewart is also the newly appointed Chair of Black Studies, beginning January 7, 2008.
Professor Stewart holds a M.A./M.Phil. and a Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale University and is the author of numerous books, essays, and articles on African American intellectual history. He comes to UCSB from George Mason University in Virginia, where he was Professor of History, Art History and African American Studies. He is a dynamic and innovative administrator with a successful track record as the former Director of the well-respected African American Studies program at George Mason. He also served as one of the founding faculty of the Graduate Department in Cultural Studies and was a member of the Arts Policy Committee. His leadership experience, ability to reach out to different parts of the university and the community, and interest in new information technologies will be valuable assets to the Department.
With recent fellowships at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and a Fulbright Lecturership in Rome, Professor Stewart also brings a distinctive perspective about international issues and the field of Black Studies on the larger world scene. He brings great distinction and visibility to the Department, as well as a unique set of interdisciplinary skills which combine history, American studies, art history, intellectual history, literature, philosophy, social thought, politics, race relations, gender and sexuality, and popular culture. Professor Stewart, a prominent and distinguished scholar of considerable versatility, is one of the most significant cultural critics working in the United States today, an intellectual historian of the highest order and a trenchant commentator on the Harlem Renaissance and on contemporary cultural politics and arts. A colleague describes him as "one of the leading interlocutors of the 20th-century African American experience."
Stewart also brings a distinguished background as a curator, having curated several exhibitions, such as To Color America: Portraits by Winold Reiss at the Smithsonian Institution in 1989 and the birthday centennial exhibition Paul Robeson: Artist and Citizen in 1998.
The faculty is also thrilled with the hiring of Professor Stephanie Batiste, whose wide-ranging scholarly and critical interests represent a multidimensional program of intellectual work that is of major importance for the field of Black Studies.
Batiste holds an A.B. from Princeton University and a Ph.D. from George Washington University. She investigates relationships between representation, performance, identity, race, and power. She specializes in African American and 20th-century American literature and culture. Her research and teaching focus on the ways in which cultural texts (literature, theater, performance, film, art, bodies) operate as imaginative systems and are themselves performative aspects of identity, cultural values, human interactions, and justice. Her book, Darkening Mirrors: Imperial Representation in Depression Era African American Performance illuminates the complicated ways African Americans participated in American ideologies of cultural imperialism. Darkening Mirrors is forthcoming from Duke University Press in 2008.
Merging scholarship and practice, Professor Batiste is also drawn to performance; she writes, performs in both community and professional theaters, and occasionally directs dramatic works. Her performance piece, Stacks of Obits, addresses themes of family, love, loss, and home through a consideration of gun violence and street murder in Los Angeles. In 2007, at Pittsburgh's African American Council for the Arts' annual Onyx Awards, she won the People's Choice Award for Best Actress and the Onyx Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Kuntu Repertory Theater's production of Relativity.
Batiste is currently the Vice President for Development and Outreach for the Women and Theater Program of the Association for Theater in Higher Education. She has presented papers at national meetings of the American Studies Association, the Modern Language Association, the Association for Theater in Higher Education, the Society for Multi-Ethnic Studies: Europe and the Americas, and several other universities and national organizations.
Professor Batiste holds a joint appointment with the Department of English.
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