The W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute Fellows 2022, including Nii Ayikwei Parkes and Panashe Chigumadzi, were announced on May 5, 2022.
The W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute is part of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research located at Harvard University. Its main work is in the provision of fellowships to scholars studying a wide variety of topics relating to its central concerns, which are African and African-American studies.
The fellows for 2022/2023 were announced by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research.
“We are happy to welcome our next cohort of distinguished and dynamic W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute Fellows,” said Gates. “We look forward to an extraordinary range of artistic and scholarly work next academic year. A poetry collection, a musical, a transnational history of the Seminoles, belonging and justice in Caribbean visual and literary cultures, an album on Hiphop as an educational tool, a study of the slave market of colonial Guadalajara, artistic representations of Black grief, amateur ministrelsy, and the 1866 cholera epidemic and origin of public health as a field are among the innovative projects which the 2022-2023 Class of Fellows will be pursuing at the W. E. B Du Bois Research Institute, housed in the Hutchins Center.”
The Fellows are
- Aabid Allibhai
- David Augustine
- Rhae Lynn Barnes
- Celeste-Marie Bernier
- David Bindman
- Kimberly Juanita Brown
- Panashe Chigumadzi
- John J. Clegg
- Jorge Delgadillo Núñez
- Jim Downs
- Reighan Gillam
- Mandy Izadi
- Nancy Jacobs
- Rashauna R. Johnson
- Stevie Johnson
- Lauren Leigh Kelly
- Shirley Moody-Turner
- Jeffrey Murray
- Nii Ayikwei Parkes
- Antonia Gabriela Pereira
- Faith Smith
- K’Naan Warsame
- Paul Tiyambe Zeleza
Speaking about the announcement, Parkes said, “Very proud to share that I’ll be the Hutchins Family Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University from September. I’ll be exploring enduring connections between Africa its Diaspora, everything from why we don’t sweep at night, through rice and peas, to the philosophy behind ‘twerking’, ultimately producing a new book of poems called s(ang’st)ill. I’m ecstatic because it’s the first pause I’m getting to immerse myself in research and writing for FIFTEEN years, but, sadly, it means I won’t be producing literature at Brighton Festival next year so make sure you buy lots of tickets to make sure I leave on a high!!
