Dr. Lisa Calvente
Postdoctoral Fellow of African American Studies Address: African American Studies Department Crow 5-137 1860 S. Campus Dr. Evanston, IL 60208-2209 Phone: Fax: Email: l-calvente@northwestern.edu

Courses:

AFAM 250: Race, Class, and Gender (FALL 2008)

AFAM 327: Politics in African American Popular Culture (SPRING 2009)

Degree:

Ph.D., Communication Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, August 2008

M. A., Communication Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, May 2002

Certificate in Cultural Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, May 2002

B.A., Sociology and Philosophy, City University of New York at Brooklyn College, May 1999

Current Research:

Keep On Keepin’ On: Performing and Imag(in)ing Leadership and Home-Space within the Black Diaspora. Keep On Keepin’ On centers on three life oral history performances as part of the black Diaspora to emphasize how these oral histories lie within a tradition of non-essentialized truths of blackness, suggest a political and historical link to revolutionary movements that organized around imagined, global freedom, and to discuss local experiences both trans-nationally and trans-culturally.  This ethnographic project highlights how each moment of sharing, recording, and analyzing these life stories simultaneously recreates the event that is told.  Additionally, it utilizes media ethnography as performative action, a form of mediated ethnography that speaks alongside of, against, and with my written text.  Dissertation manuscript under revision.

The Iconography of Revolution: Global Resistance, the Popular, and (Neo)Colonialism. This collaborative project analyzes how the concept of revolution is appropriated through public images in countries that have invested in socialist revolutions.  It explores re-conceptualizations of revolution as a mobilizing practice in response to globalization. The project argues that a return to the analyses of ‘revolution’ opens spaces of possibilities that have been hidden by particular truth regimes symptomatic to neo-liberalism and dominant scholarly works of modernity. Collaborative book in preparation.

“This is One Line You Won’t Have to Worry about Crossing’: Crossing Borders/Becoming Abject.” Article in preparation.

“A ‘Homegirl’ Holla’s Back: Subverting Stereotypes and Creating ‘Homeplace’.” Article in preparation.

“Isn’t This My Home Too?: Between Latinidad and the Black Diaspora.” Book chapter submission.  

Recent Awards:

Recipient, Northwestern University Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2008-2010

Recipient, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Off Campus Dissertation Research Fellowship, Spring 2008