Michelle D. Commander is a historian and author, and serves as Deputy Director of Research and Strategic Initiatives at the

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is a research library of the New York Public Library (NYPL) and an archive repository for information on people of African descent worldwide. Located at 515 Malcolm X Boulevard (Lenox Avenue) b ...

Education

Commander received her BA in English from

Charleston Southern University Charleston Southern University (CSU) is a private Baptist university in North Charleston, South Carolina. It is affiliated with the South Carolina Baptist Convention ( Southern Baptist Convention). History Charleston Southern University was ch ...

and completed a M.S. in Curriculum and Instruction at

Florida State University Florida State University (FSU) is a public research university in Tallahassee, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. Founded in 1851, it is located on the oldest continuous site of higher education in the st ...

before completing a MA and PhD in American Studies and Ethnicity at the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

Career

Before joining the Lapidus Center, Commander worked as associate professor of English and Africana Studies at the University of Tennessee. She serves as faculty for Rare Book School, and is an author at ''Ms. Magazine.'' Commander served as consulting curator and literary scholar for the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

's Afrofuturism period room, ''

Before Yesterday We Could Fly ''Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room'' is an art exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The exhibit, which opened on November 5, 2021, uses a period room format of installation to envision the past, ...

'', which opened in November 2021.

Scholarship

Commander's work focuses on slavery and memory, diaspora studies, literary studies,

Afrofuturism Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic, and philosophy of science and history that explores the intersection of the African diaspora culture with science and technology. It addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora through technocu ...

, and Black social movements. Her publications include ''Afro-Atlantic Flight: Speculative Returns and the Black Fantastic'' (Duke University Press 2017), and ''Avidly Reads Passages'' (NYU Press 2021). She is editor of ''Unsung: Unheralded Narratives of American Slavery & Abolition'', an anthology of Black history spanning transatlantic slavery to Reconstruction. Her focus on Black mobility, slavery, diasporic longing and speculative futures is evident in her influence on ''Before Yesterday We Could Fly'' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Awards

Commander is a Ford Foundation scholar and is the recipient of a Fulbright grant which funded teaching and research in Ghana in 2012-2013.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Commander, Michael D. Afrofuturism Living people New York Public Library people University of Southern California alumni Year of birth missing (living people) American women curators American curators American women historians