Michelle D. Commander is a historian and author, and the Deputy Director of the Smithsonian’s

National Museum of African American History and Culture The National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), colloquially known as the Blacksonian, is a Smithsonian Institution museum located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in the United States. It was established in 2003 an ...

(NMAAHC).

Education

Commander received her BA in English from

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

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

Florida State University Florida State University (FSU or Florida State) is a Public university, public research university in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and a preeminent university in the s ...

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 ...

Career

Commander worked as associate professor of English and Africana Studies at the University of Tennessee for eight years. She has also taught courses at Florida A&M University, Florida State University and the University of Ghana. She serves as faculty for Rare Book School, and is an author at ''Ms. Magazine.'' Following her professorship, Commander first became associate director and curator of the Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery 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) be ...

and then became the Schomberg's Deputy Director of Research and Strategic Initiatives, until December 2022. Commander also served as consulting curator and literary scholar for the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

'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. She started her current position, Deputy Director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), in January 2023.

Scholarship

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

Afrofuturism Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic, 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 technoculture ...

, 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