ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS
2022- Assistant Professor of African American & African Diaspora Studies, Core Faculty in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Department of Critical Race, Gender, and Cultural Studies, American University
2021–22 Assistant Professor of African American Literature, Department of English, Howard University
EDUCATION
PhD NEH NextGeneration PhD Fellow, African American Public Humanities
Initiative English Studies, University of Delaware, received May 2021.
MA Culture and Theory PhD Program, Emphasis in African American Studies, University of California, Irvine, 2016.
BA Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, Minor in Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, 2013.
French Language and French Moroccan Literature emphasis
Study Abroad: Université du Mohammed-V, Rabat, Morocco, 2012.
TEACHING AND RESEARCH INTERESTS
20th and 21st century African Diasporic literature, visuality, and digital culture and aesthetics; Cultural memory; Data and Race; Medical Humanities; Health and Technology; Medical Racism; Archives in America; Black Feminist Praxis; Black Information Studies; Surveillance; Health Equity; Black Maternal Health; Public Health Policy; Critical Black Theory; Racial Capitalism in the Medical Space; Reproductive Health Law; Social Media Use and Protection; Black memory work; Black writers and artists; Knowledge and memory production; Bioethics; Contemporary Black activism of everyday life; Cultural and material histories of maternity and birth; Material Studies; Black Feminist Theory; Memorial and museum spaces; Black Digital Activism; Digital Humanities; Public Humanities; Scholar-Activism; Community-Engaged Scholarship and Space Building; Archive theory and making; Archival justice; Radical Methods of Documentation and Recording; Special collections-based teaching; Reproductive justice; Black kinship in daily life.
FELLOWSHIPS
2022 Princeton University, Art Hx, Digital Interpretive Fellow
2022 Johns Hopkins University Humanities Collaboratory, Faculty Fellow
2022 Social Science Research Center Just Tech Fellowship (finalist)
2021 Errin J. Vuley Reproductive Leadership Fellowship, Feminist Women’s Health Center, Atlanta, GA
2021 President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, University of Maryland, College Park, Department of American Studies (declined)
2021 AAUW American Dissertation Fellowship (declined)
2021 Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship (declined)
2020 Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, Honorable Mention
2018 PAGE (Publicly Active Graduate Education) Fellow, Imagining America
2017 Emerging Archival Scholars Program Fellowship at University of Toronto, Archival Education and Research Institute (AERI)
2016 Emerging Archival Scholars Program Fellowship, at Kent State University, Archival Education and Research Institute (AERI)
2016 Ford Foundation Pre-doctoral Fellowship, Honorable Mention
2016 University of California, Irvine Regents’ Fellowship
2015 University of California, Irvine LEAD Fellowship
GRANTS AND AWARDS
2022 American University, Book Incubator Award
2022 Feminist Theory Journal, Best Essay Award, (Honorable Mention)
2020 Women of Color Caucus/Frontiers Journal Graduate Essay Award, National Women’s Studies Association
2020 Ida B. Wells Dissertation Award, Coordinating Council for Women in History
2019 Robert W. Woodruff Library Archives Travel Research Award, Atlanta University Center Archives
2019 UNIDEL Louise Roselle Collections-Based Research Travel Award, University of Delaware
2019 Professional Development Award for Community Engaged Projects, Imagining America
2016 University of California, Irvine Vice President of Affairs Conference Travel Award
2015 University of California, Irvine Graduate Dean’s Recruitment Grant
2014 University of Minnesota, Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies Best Undergraduate Essay
COURSES TAUGHT
American University
The Aesthetics of Black Motherhood
Doctors, Doulas, and Midwives
Howard University
African American Poetry
African American Literature, Black Arts Movement to the Present
Featured Author: Jesamyn Ward
African American Literature Survey II (Graduate.)
Independent Graduate Study: Aminah Robinson + Black Feminism
Independent Graduate Study: Memory-making + Visual and Literary Culture
Pomona College
Introduction to African American Literature (Designed.)
California State University, Dominguez Hills
Introduction to Hip Hop (Designed.)
The African American Experience in the U.S. (Designed.)
Africana Culture and Art (Designed.)
University of Delaware
Teaching Assistant, English Studies Department
Black Atlantic and the Archive, Graduate Seminar, Dr. Laura Helton, (Co-designed.)
Into the Archives: The Ephemeral Langston Hughes, Dr. Laura Helton.
University of California, Irvine
Teaching Assistant, African American Studies Department
Intro to African American Studies, Dr. Malaika Mutere.
University of Minnesota
Teaching Assistant, Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies Department
bell hooks’ “Black looks,” Dr. Zenzele Isoke
Other
Instructor. Advanced Civics for ELA, (Designed). Strong City Baltimore Center.
Instructor. Introduction to Social Justice, (Designed.) Bruin Guardian Scholar Academy for Foster Youth, UCLA.
THESES SUPERVISED
Lacey Johnson, ’22, Howard University, English and Sociology double major
PUBLICATIONS
Books
Scrap Theory: Reproductive Injustice in the Black Feminist Imagination, (Columbus: OSUP, under advanced contract for 2024)
Peer-reviewed Book Chapters
“A Black Daughter Like Me: Breaking the Curse of Matrilineal Fragmentation.” Thinking About Our Mothers: Reflecting on Influences From A Mother’s Relationship With Her Own Mother. Eds. Dr. Joan Garvan and Kandee Kosior. Demeter Press, forthcoming Summer 2022.
“The Language Through Which Black Feminist Theory Speaks: A Conversation with Jennifer C. Nash.” Black Feminist Sociology: Perspectives and Praxis, Eds. Zakiyah Luna and Whitney Pirtle, Routledge: New York.
Peer-reviewed Journal Articles
“‘Pure Scraps’: Refused Materials and the Black Maternal Archival Praxis of Samaria Rice” The Black Scholar: special issue on Black Archival Practice, Eds. Tonia Sutherland and Zakiya Collier, Winter 2022.
“For Those of Us Who are Patiently Watching: Black Health Crises and their Bioethical Doubles,” The Hastings Center Report: Special Report on Bioethics and Anti- Blackness, April/May 2022 issue.
“Rethinking the Human: Anti-Respectability and Blackhood.” American Quarterly (71.1), March 2019. 141–149.
Collins, Mali, Melanye Price, and Robert Smith. “A Conversation on the 2016 Presidential Election with Robert Smith and Melanye Price.” National Political Science Review, Vol. 18.1, (2017) 177-183.
Collins-White, Mali, Ariane Cruz, Jillian Hernandez, Xavier Livermon, Kaila Story, and Jennifer Nash. “Disruptions in Respectability: A Roundtable Discussion.” Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society, 18.2-4 (2016): 463-75.
Book Reviews
“Left Behind: Urban High Schools and the Failure of Market Reform.” National Political Science Review, Vol. 19.1, (2018): 194-196.
Public Humanities
“Medical Technology and Reproductive Rights,” Social Science Research Center, Just Tech Blog, forthcoming February 2023.
“How Your Period-Tracking App Could End Up Tracking You,” RewireNews.com, December 2022.
“A Tapestry Breaks In(to) the Internet in Qualeasha Wood’s Digi-textiles.” SugarcaneMagazine.com, November 30, 2022
Linette Park and Mali Collins, “Black Women Giving Birth in Prison Face Surveillance Disguised as Medical Care”, TruthOut.org, June 27, 2021.
“What White Publishers Won’t Print: Systemic Racism in (Institutionalized) Knowledge
Production,” The Feminist Wire, January 2015.
“Book Review: Ellen K. Farber’s Making Sense of Intersex,” Bitch Magazine, Summer 2014.
“Uncle Sam Wants You, Not Your Hair: Black Women and the Military,” Bitch Magazine,
Summer 2014.
“Feminist Science Fiction,” Minnesota Women’s Press Magazine, May 2014.
“Feminism, Motherhood, and Love in Kelis’ Food,” bitchmedia.org, May 2014.
“Required Intelligence: Punk Midwest Artistry, Arts Feature on Krista Franklin.” Afropunk.com, March 2014.
“Bitch Contributors on Law & Order: Class Matters” Bitch Magazine, Winter 2014.
“What Happens When White Men Talk About Black Women in Sports,” bitchmedia.org,
August 2014.
“Radical Presence in MPLS,” Arts Feature, Afropunk.com, July 2014.
“My Thing Is: Natural Hair Didn’t Free Me Like I Thought It Would,” TheRoot.com, March 2014.
MULTIMEDIA
RLTY 101 PODCAST: Co-hosted with Dr. Elizabeth Rule (Chickasaw Nation)
Black, Indigenous, and Feminist podcast for students of reality television. Est. 2023.
Creative Writing
“The Jacket,” Haunt Journal of Art, Volume 5, Fall 2018.
“Black Rage I, II, III,” SALT: Feminism + Contemporary Art, Volume 8, Fall 2016.
“Untitled” in Closer Still curated by LaKeisha Leek, HATCH, Chicago, IL, April 3-23, 2015.
“On a Manifesto,” “I Made My Own,” London: SALT.: Feminism + Contemporary Art, Volume 6, 2014.
SELECTED CONFERENCE ACTIVITY
Presider and Organizer. “The Black Textual as the (Im)material: (Im)possibilities of Historical Memory for Black Violence,” Modern Language Association, January 9, 2020.
Presenter and organizer. “Transgressing Academic Borders: Public Humanities and Black Feminism,” National Women’s Studies Association, November 14, 2019.
Presider and organizer. “Un-reading Dispossession from Black Womxn’s Activism,” National Women’s Studies Association, November 14, 2019.
Respondent. “My Art Speaks for Both My Peoples: A Symposium on Elizabeth Catlett,” University of Delaware, October 4, 2019.
Presenter. “Encounters at ‘The Pier’: FX’s POSE and the Site of Motherly Dispossession in the Black Atlantic,” at Northeast Modern Language Association Conference, Washington, D.C., March 22, 2019.
Presenter. “The Case for Black Motherhood Studies,” at Black Intersections Conference, Pomona College, February 23, 2019.
Panelist. “Keynote Panel Address on Anti-Respectability,” with Marlon Bailey, Ruth Nicole Brown, Mali Collins-White, and Jordan Mulkey, at University of Missouri, Black Studies Fall Conference 2017: ‘This is Not Your Grandfather’s Black Studies’, October 13-14, 2017.
Presenter. “Black Radical Pedagogy: Moving Towards a More Radical Education for Black Students in Historically White Spaces,” at Birmingham City University, UK, Black Education for Liberation, November 3, 2017.
Presenter. “Insights in the Archives: Realizing (B)lackness through Queer Methodologies” at Archives Matter Conference, Goldsmiths, University of London, June 2, 2016.
Panelist. “(Anti-)Black Archives,” Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies Department Symposium on Archives, University of California, Irvine, April 20, 2016.
Presenter. “Parallel Indignations: New Negro Politics and Radical Recurring Thought,” at the CUNY First Annual African and African American Diaspora Studies Conference, City University of New York, October 10, 2014.
INVITED TALKS
“The State of Black Motherhood,” Theories of Mass Incarceration course, November Emory University, 2022.
“Flip the Script: Writing for Public Audiences and Impact.” Imagining America, April 12, 2021.
“Bioethical Issues in Tech use in the Birthroom in the United States.” American Society for Bioethics and Humanities Race and Ethnicity Group. August 5, 2021 (cancelled).
“Shackling, Surveillance, and the Manufactured Crisis of Black People in Labor” Guest Lecture Seminar, Yale University Center for Bioethics. July 22, 2021.
“Artistic Documentations of Contemporary Black Motherhood & Separation,” The Jane and Littleton Mitchell Center for African American Heritage at the Delaware Historical Society. November 5, 2020.
“Digital Birth Rights Activism: What it Means for Already-incarcerated Pregnant People,” Mass Incarceration undergraduate course, African American Studies department, Penn State University. October 7, 2020.
“Arts-based Inquiry as Resistance against Police Brutality,” “Graduate Community Engagement: Transforming Graduate Education in the Humanities.” University of California, Merced. September 11, 2020.
“To Rage, Black,” Mathew Gallery, New York, Hosted by Montez Press. August 14, 2016.
“Death, MOVE, and the Manifesto,” The White Building, SALT. Feminism + Contemporary Art Symposium, London, England. November 22, 2014.
ORGANIZED CONFERENCES, SYMPOSIA, AND EVENTS
Chair of Presenter Selection Committee, Black Feminist Kitchen Presents: The Black Feminist Summer School, July 8-12, 2020.
Co-Organizer, “Black Atlantic and the Archive,” six-part speaker series, featuring Jennifer L. Morgan, Laurie Lambert, and Maleda Belilgne, Fall semester 2018, University of Delaware.
Co-Organizer, “Scandal In Real Time,” May 11-13, 2016, University of California, Irvine.
SCHOLARLY AND DIGITAL RESEARCH
Personally Conducted.
Project: “The Black Feminist Archival Workshop.” Blackfeministarchivalworkshop.wordpress.com
Blog and digital humanities space directed at researching radical forms of documentation of Black women and girls. Ongoing.
Conducted under Dr. Tiffany Gill, University of Delaware.
Project: “Civil Rights on Vacation: African American Leisure, International Travel, and the Long Black Freedom Struggle.” (2019-2020)
Conducted under Bergis Jules, Documenting the Now.
Project: Mapping Black California is focused on using archives to tell stories of civic, social, economic, and cultural life of Black Americans in California.
(2018-2019)
Conducted under Dr. Laura Helton, University of Delaware.
Project: Home to Harlem initiative at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture to reconstruct Arturo Schomburg’s original personal library. New York, New York. (Summer 2018)
Conducted under Dr. Gabrielle Foreman, University of Delaware.
Project: The Colored Conventions Project (CCP) documents nineteenth-century Black collective organizing bringing it to digital life for a new generation of researchers, students and community scholars. (2018)
SERVICE AND LOCAL COMMUNITY OUTREACH
Pregnancy Termination, Birth, and Postpartum Doula, LA & DMV area, ongoing since 2017.
The Womb Room (Baltimore), Postpartum Doula and Pregnancy Support group leader, ongoing since 2022.
Strong City Baltimore, Adult English Language Educator, ongoing since 2017.
Bay Area Doula Project, Certified Abortion Doula, ongoing since 2019.
Quietly United in Loss Together, Certified Pregnancy and Infant Loss Advocate, ongoing since 2019.
Academy of Childbirth and Birth Educators. Certified full-spectrum doula and childbirth educator, ongoing since 2018.
Breastfeeding USA, Breastfeeding counselor, Maryland and DC chapter, in training.
Black Infant Health of Los Angeles County. Volunteer childbirth and infant care instructor, ongoing since 2019.
Last Seen Project: Finding Family After Slavery. University of Villanova. Volunteer transcriber, ongoing since 2018.
Birthing People Foundation Los Angeles, Birth worker Intern, ongoing since 2018.
Compton Center for Black Life. Co-founder and Program Director, 2015-2017.
AKERELE Leadership Program for Black Youth. Co-director and co-teacher, ongoing since 2014.
The New Minnesota Writing Project. Co-editor and co-founder, 2014-2015.
AmeriCorps VISTA. Literacy Corps member 2012-2013.
Tubman Center for Women. Policy Writing Intern, Minneapolis, MN 2011-2012.
MEMBERSHIPS
American Studies Association (ASA)
Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH)
Modern Language Association (MLA)
National Women's Studies Association (NWSA)
African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS)
Coordinating Council for Women in History (CCWH)
Society for American Archivists (SAA)
College Language Association (CLA)
REVIEWER (PEER-REVIEWED JOURNALS)
Medical Anthropology, 2022.
LANGUAGES
English (Native speaker)
French (Proficient)
Standard Arabic (Beginner)
Darija (Conversational)