DILAC has hosted two faculty fellows during the 2016-2017 academic year.
Susana Morris
Susanna Morris joined us as our Spring 2017 DILAC Fellow. Morris came to us from Auburn University where she is Associate Professor and Director of Core Literature. She received her Ph.D. from Emory University and her B.A. from Mount Holyoke College. Her research and teaching interests include African American and Caribbean literature since 1970, Black Feminisms—particularly in digital spaces—and Afrofuturism. Her first book, Close Kin and Distant Relatives: The Paradox of Respectability in Black Women’s Literature, was published by the University of Virginia Press in 2014. She is currently at work on a book length exploration of Black women, Afrofuturism, and feminism. She has also published articles in journals such as The Griot: The Journal of African American Studies, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, South Atlantic Quarterly, and Women’s Studies Quarterly. She is also a founding member and contributing writer for the popular feminist blog, The Crunk Feminist Collective.
Joycelyn Wilson
Joycelyn Wilson was our Fall 2016 fellow. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Foundations of Education program in the Department of Learning Sciences and Technologies at Virginia Tech ‘s School of Education. She is also affiliate faculty in the Africana Studies Program, a Catalyst Fellow in the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology (ICAT), and Hiphop Archive alumnus fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute at Harvard University. In 2008, she founded what is now the Four Four Beat Project. She is also the co-founder and co-chair of the Hip Hop Theories, Pedagogies, and Praxis SIG (Special Interest Group) for the American Educational Research Association (AERA).
As part of the movement to usher Hip Hop culture into campus culture, Wilson is responsible for bringing artists such as Killer Mike, David Banner, TI, Lupe Fiasco, and DJ Drama to the Atlanta University Center to engage with students attending Morehouse, Spelman, and Clark-Atlanta University. Most recently she has focused on her love for “message music”, southern culture, and the digital as a contributor to The Bitter Southerner.
Having received her BS in Mathematics, and PhD in Educational Foundations and Qualitative Research from the University of Georgia, she firmly stands on the shoulders of family, teachers, and mentors. She received her MA in Education from Pepperdine Univeristy. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram @drjoycedotnet.