John Maddox (Ph.D., Vanderbilt 2014) is currently an Associate Professor of Spanish and African American Studies in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is the author of Challenging the Black Atlantic: Manuel Zapata Olivella and Ana Maria Gonçalves (Bucknell University Press, 2021) and co-author (with Thomas M. Stephens, Rutgers University) of the Dictionary of Latin American Identities. (University of Florida Press, 2021). His talk will delve into his new book Fractal Families in New Millenial Narrative by Afro-Puerto Rican Women, under contract by U of Wales.

Until 2021, there was no Black Studies program in Puerto Rican universities. How did it come about? Black people were largely imagined as part of the “great Puerto Rican family,” a mestizo myth that claimed the island was a benevolent plantation. Precursors challenged this mythology, but only after the UN Regional Conference against Racism (2000) do we see the flourishing of conferences like Conferencia de Afrodescendencia (ConAfro) Puerto Rico. Black writers have led the movement to reclaim Black identity and its history and build new institutions like the Bachelor's in Black Studies. This talk will describe the new "fractal families" that these writers have imagined, empowering Black women on the island and in the diaspora.

Sponsor(s): Latin American Institute, Spanish and Portuguese