People

Meet the Director

L. Kaifa Roland joins Clemson from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she has been Associate Professor of Anthropology since 2006 and served as Chair of Women and Gender Studies since 2020.

Roland holds a B.A. in Third World Studies at Oberlin College, an M.A. in African Studies from Howard University, and a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from Duke University.

Her career as an instructor began at Duke University, where she taught courses in Contemporary Culture in Cuba and the Caribbean. After Duke, she was a visiting instructor and visiting professor in anthropology at Kenyon College. She has been on faculty at University of Colorado at Boulder since 2006.

As a cultural anthropologist, Roland’s research has focused on the Caribbean, specifically Cuba. Belonging is a central theme of her book, “Cuban Color in Tourism and La Lucha: An Ethnography of Racial Meanings,” as well as of multiple articles and chapters she has penned describing the black experience.

“Global Black Studies introduces students to the experiences, histories, and cultures of African-descended people around the world. It attends to the creativity and resilience of these communities in the Americas, Europe, and across Africa in the context of post-colonial racialization. In short, the program teaches students about the lived realities of a world of Black people.”

L. Kaifa Roland

Director

Global Black Studies

Affiliated Faculty

Susanna Ashton

Professor
Notions of authentication and identity in slavery & freedom narratives; 18th-, 19th-, and early 20th-century American Literature; collaboration; surveillance studies; copyright; history of the book; periodical culture; abolitionist literature; Charles W. Chesnutt; American Literary Realism; Life Writing
Email: sashton@clemson.edu
Office: 611 Strode

Abel A. Bartley

Professor
U.S. History; US 1945-1975; US since 1975; African American history
Email: abartly@clemson.edu
Office: 108 Hardin Hall
Phone: 864-656-5372

Elizabeth Jemison

Associate Professor of Religion
Email: ejemiso@clemson.edu
Office: Hardin 220
Phone: 864-656-2001

Kendra Johnson

Professor of Theatre
Costume History, African American Theatre, Costume Construction, African American Dress
Email: kjohns7@clemson.edu
Office: 211 Brooks

William C. McCoy, Ed.D.

Director of the Rutland Institute for Ethics
Email: wmccoy@clemson.edu
Office: 242 Hardin Hall
Phone: 864-656-6147

Angela Naimou

Associate Professor
Literatures in English since 1900; Anti-colonial and Postcolonial Theory; Studies of Race, Diaspora, and Migration; Law and Literature; World Literature in Translation
Email: anaimou@clemson.edu
Office: 709 Strode

Vincent R. Ogoti

Assistant Professor, English and Global Black Studies
Vincent R. Ogoti’s scholarship focuses on African, African American, and Caribbean Literature and Culture; Literature and Medicine; Queer Studies; Oral Literature; and Literary and Critical Theory
Email: vogoti@clemson.edu
Office: 811 Strode

George Palacios, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Spanish
Afro-Latin America, Latin America, Colombian and Brazilian Literatures and Cultures, US-Latin American Relations, Literary and Cultural Relations of the Global South.
Email: gpalaci@clemson.edu
Office: 515 Strode
Phone: 864-656-3393