About

Received B.A. in Ethnic Arts from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), M.A. and Ph.D. in Art History from UCLA. Have taught at Columbia University and Rutgers University. Author of Homosexuality in Art (2002) and Homoerotic Photography of Carl Van Vechten (2006).

Research interests

The intersection of race, gender, and queer sexuality matters in the art of the 19th Century (European) and the art and visual culture of the black diaspora.

Teaching interests

19th-century art and visual culture
Contemporary Art of the Non-Western World
History of Design
Visual Culture of the Black Diaspora
Black, Queer, Feminist Film

Education

  • Ph D, Art History — Unversity of California, Los Angeles (1991)
    Esclave, Nègre, Noir: The Representation of Blacks in Late 18th- and 19th-Century French Art
  • MA, Art History — Unversity of California, Los Angeles (1986)
    Women, Children, and Ideology in the Works of William-Adolphe Bouguereau
  • BA, Ethnic Arts (World Arts and Cultures) — Unversity of California, Los Angeles (1981)
    N/A

Publications

  • A Second Renaissance: Essex Hemphill and the Bridging of Black Gay Identities 2025 Essex Hemphill: Take Care of Your Blessings · The Phillips Collection · (1) · pp. 23-27
  • Menace at the Portal: Masculine Desire and the Homoerotics of Orientalism 2016 Orientalism, Eroticism and Modern Visuality in Global Cultures · Routledge · (1st) · pp. 25-54
  • Sculpting African Nouveau: Primitivism, Ethnography, and Afro-Kitsch in the Works of Woodrow Nash 2016 International Review of African American Art · 26 (2) · pp. 29-44
  • The Art of Remembering: Essays on African American Art Panorama: Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art · 11 (1)

Presentations

  • Queer Links: Art, Gay Networks, and Interracial Sociability in the Harlem Renaissance 2025 The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity, 1869-1939 · Alliance Française of Chicago · Oral Presentation
  • Queer Links: Art, Gay Networks, and Interracial Sociability in the Harlem Renaissance 2025 A Harlem State of Mind: 100 Years of the Renaissance · UMBC · Oral Presentation
  • Leadership in Higher Education: Past, Present, and Future 2021 UMBC Black Faculty · UMBC Black Faculty Committee

Grants and Contracts

  • Getty Research Institute/African American Art History Initiative Getty Research Institute · Fellowship · Funded

Courses Taught

  • Enlightenment to Modernism ART 321 · Spring 2023