Monica L. Miller
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Africana Studies
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Monica L. Miller, Professor of Africana Studies, joined the faculty of Barnard in 2001.
Professor Miller specializes in African-American and American literature and cultural studies. Her research interests include twentieth- and twenty-first-century African-American literature, film, and contemporary art; contemporary literature and cultural studies of the black diaspora; performance studies; and intersectional studies of race, gender, and sexuality.
Her book, Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity, was published by Duke University Press in 2009. It received the 2010 William Sanders Scarborough Prize for the best book in African American literature and culture from the Modern Language Association; it was shortlisted for the 2010 Modernist Studies Association book prize.
Professor Miller is the recipient of grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (2012, 2001), the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (2004), and Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation (2004). She served as a Term Fellow at Institute for Research in African American Studies, Columbia University (2011-13). She was the recipient of the Gladys Brooks Junior Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award, Barnard College (2008).
She is currently at work on Blackness, Swedish Style: Race and the Rhizomatics of Being, which is a multi-genre investigation of multiculturalism, integration, and Afro-Swedishness in relation to Black European Studies and theories of diaspora and diasporic belonging. Investigating connections and disconnections between Europe, Sweden and its African Diaspora, as well as among AfroSwedes themselves, this book is a diverse volume consisting of theory, ethnography, memoir, (oral) history, and contemporary cultural criticism.
Professor Miller's personal website is here.
- Ph.D., Harvard University
- B.A., Dartmouth College
- African-American literature and cultural studies
- Black diaspora; Black European Studies
- Black Fashion and Dress Cultures
- Race, gender, sexuality
- Black European Cultural Studies (Africana Studies Colloquium)
- Home to Harlem (Seminar, Harlem Semester)
- Zora Neale Hurston: A Writing Life
“Presence, Protest, and Possibility: A Roundtable with the AfroNordic Feminism Group.” Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Studies Meeting. Seattle, Washington. May 2024
“Brummel in Black: A Meditation in Minimalism and Abstraction…the single Gesture and the full effect.” Keynote Address: Beau Brummell and New Masculinities Conference, The Association of Dress Historians with University of the Arts, London, Central Saint Martins, London, UK. April 2024.
“Fashion, Race, Identity, and Power: Black Dandy Beginnings.” Talking About Race Matters series. Dyckman Farmhouse Museum, New York, NY. Online, February 2024.
“Africa Fashion//Call & Response: Fabricating the Global Diaspora” with Dr. Christine Checinska. Victoria and Albert Museum course on African Fashion. Online, March 2023.
“Zora Neale Hurston.” Cultural Medallion Dedication, Historic Landmarks Preservation Center. Online, June 2022.
“Exploring the Imaginative and Moral Narratives in Beloved.” Center for Black Literature, Medgars Evers College. New York, NY. With the Center for Fiction, part of the NEA’s Big Read. Online, June 2022.
“On paper, we are parentheses into which someone else has placed us’: Black Swedish Memoir and The Rhizomatics of Race.” Sketches of Black Europe: Imagining Europe/ans in African and African Diasporic Narratives. Blankensee Colloquium, Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur-und Kulturforschung. Berlin, Germany. March 2022. Participated online; hybrid conference.
“Introduction.” Thinking Through Racial Capitalism and Settler Colonialism in the Context of the Nordics. Heyman Center, Columbia University. New York, NY. February 2022.
“Slaves to Fashion: A Cultural History of Black Dandyism.” National Arts Club. New York, NY. January 2021.
“Rhizomatic Forms and Global Black Aesthetics.” Bard Graduate Center Seminar in Art and Material Culture of Africa and the African Diaspora. November 2021.
“Debating the Black Body in Fashion & Popular Culture: Panel II: The “Aesthetics of Excess” and Respectability Politics.” UCLA African American Studies, Black Dress & Culture Series, November 2021.
“ 'Black is black not blue or purple/being black is like a circle': Geometries of Black Swedish Identity." Keynote lecture, ASTRA (Association of Swedish Teachers of America). University of Wisconsin, Madison, Department of German, Slavic, and Nordic Studies, October 2021.
“On paper, we are parentheses into which someone else has placed us’: Black Swedish Childhood and Performances of Race.” Plenary lecture and discussion. Mellon School of Theater and Performance at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. June 2021.
“Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon.” Reading Toni Morrison. 92nd Street Y. April 2021.
"Luxury Slaves, Negro Governors, and Jim Crow: Black Dandy Beginnings.” Invisible Makers: Textiles, Dress, and Marginalized People in 18th- and 19th-Century America. Invited Plenary Lecture. Historic Deerfield. Deerfield, MA. April 2021.
“Black Swedish Childhood and the Racial Logics of Belonging.” Modern Language Association. Toronto, CA. CLCS Nordic Forum, panel on "Contested Decolonizations." January 2021.
“Can You Feel It? Looking for Langston at 30: A Meditation.” Looking for Langston at 30: A Film Screening and Roundtable Celebrating Queer Harlem in Support of Harlem Renaissance at 100. Columbia University. New York, NY. December 2020.
Publications
Slaves to Fashion: The Black Dandy and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity. Durham: Duke University Press, (2009). 2nd printing, September 2010.
Winner of the 2010 William Sanders Scarborough Prize for the best book in African American literature and culture, Modern Language Association.
Shortlist, 2010 Modernist Studies Association Book Prize.
Reviews: San Francisco Bay Guardian, November 8, 2009; Callaloo 33 (4) 2010; MELUS 35 (4) 2010; Comparative Literature 62 (4) 2010; Modern Fiction Studies 57 (1); GLQ 17 (2-3) 2011; Theatre Journal63(2) (2011); Clio 40 (3) (2011); Amerikastudien/American Studies (Winter 2011); TDR (The Drama Review) 57:1 (T217) Spring 2013.
“Race, Melancholia, Midsommar.” Discourse: Journal for Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture, ed. Aviva Briefel (44:3, Fall 2022).
“Asynchronous: Black Time.” Theory & Event, Keywords for 2020 Symposium. Eds. Sarah Haley and Samantha Pinto (25: 1, January 2022): 134-139.
“Introduction: (Re): Zora Neale Hurston, Now and Again.” Undiminished Blackness: Zora Neale Hurston as Theory and Practice. The Scholar & Feminist Online, 16:2 (2020). Eds. Monica L. Miller and Tami Navarro.
“The Grain of her Voice: Nina Simone, Josette Bushell Mingo and Intersections between Art, Politics, and Race, with Anna Adeniji, Barbara Asante, and Anna Lundberg.PARSE, special issue on Intersectional Engagement in Politics and Arts (11, Summer 2020).
“On Having Your Cake and Eating It Too: Black (Diasporic/Nordic) Arts,” Social Text: Periscope ‘Shady Convivialities’ on Tavia N’yongo’s Afrofabulations (January 28, 2020).
“Figuring Blackness in a Place Without Race: Sweden, Recently.” ELH (English Literary History) 84:2 (2017): 377-97.
“Black, Queer, Dandy: ‘the Beauty Without Whom We Cannot Seem to Live’.” NKA: A Journal of Contemporary African Art 38-39 (Fall 2016): 32-39. (special issue on Black Portraiture).
“Introduction: Singing a Black Girl’s Song at Barnard and Beyond,” with Kim F. Hall. Ntozake Shangedouble issue of The Scholar and Feminist Online, 12.3-13.1 (Summer/Fall 2014). Eds. Kim F. Hall, Monica L. Miller, and Yvette Christianse.
“Taking the Temperature of True North.” Gender on Ice. The Scholar and Feminist Online, 7.1 (Fall 2008). Eds. Lisa Bloom, Elena Glasberg, and Laura Kay. (refereed online journal)
“Introduction: Zoramania.” Jumpin’ at the Sun: Reassessing the Life and Work of Zora Neale Hurston. The Scholar and Feminist Online, 3.2 (Winter 2005). Ed. Monica L. Miller. (refereed online journal)
“W.E.B. Du Bois and the Dandy as Diasporic Race Man.” Callaloo special issue on Black Literary Masculinities 26 (3) (Summer 2003) 738-765.
“A History of Black Diasporic Artists in Scandinavia.” Routledge Companion to African Diasporic Art History. Ed. Edward Chambers (London and New York: Routledge) (forthcoming)
“Story and Context, Cut and Fit: ‘The Literary,’ Fashion, and Race.” Fashion and Literature: Cambridge University Press Critical Concept Series, Ed. Elizabeth Sheehan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) (forthcoming).
“Introduction: Let’s Talk About Race” (with Nana Osei-Kofi), I Talk About It all the Time by Camara Lundestad Joof, trans. Olivia Gunn. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2024.
“Pantomime: Global Modernism’s Harlequinade.” A New Vocabulary for Global Modernism. Eds. Rebecca Walkowitz and Eric Hayot. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016: 169-184.
“August 11, 1955: ‘The Whole Matter Revolves Around Self-Respect for my People,’ Zora Neale Hurston Denounces the Brown vs. Board Supreme Court Decision on Segregation.” The New Literary History of America. Eds. Werner Sollors and Greil Marcus. Harvard University Press, 2009. 852-856.
“The Black Dandy as Bad Modernist.” Bad Modernisms. Eds. Rebecca Walkowitz and Douglas Mao. Durham: Duke University Press, December 2005. 179-205.
“Pink in Hip-Hop.” Co-authored with Elena Romero. Fresh, Fly, and Fabulous: Fifty Years of Hip-Hop Style. (New York: Rizzoli International, 2023): 217-233.
“Oh Yeah! Yes! Oh Yeah! Theaster Gates’ Clay Sermon.” Theaster Gates: A Clay Sermon (London: Whitechapel Gallery, 2022).
“Once Upon a Time in Nigeria…” (On Orange Culture). Africa Fashion (London: V&A Museum, 2022).
“Come Through, Ms. Turner…Come Through,” Amongst Friends: Photographs of Lana Turner by Dario Calmese, (St. Louis, MO: projects + gallery, 2018) n.p. Mentioned in Vogue, February 16, 2018.
“ ‘Joy, Creation, Being’: On Dandy Lion (Re) Articulating Black Masculinity,” Photoworks Annual/Brighton Photo Biennale 23: Self-Styled (Brighton, UK: Photoworks, 2016): 72-81.
“An Interview with Iké Udé: Mining the Opposition…is my Great Refusal,” Iké Udé: Style and Sympathies: New Photographic Works (New York: Leila Heller Gallery, 2013) n.p.
“Fresh-Dressed Like a Million Bucks’: Hip Hop Dandyism” in Artist/Rebel/Dandy: Men of Fashion exhibition catalog, Rhode Island School of Design Museum. New Haven: Yale University Press (2013). Exhibition and catalog review in Slate.
“Fix up, Look Smart” in Black Gossamer exhibition catalog. Columbia College Chicago, Glass Curtain Gallery, November 2011.
“Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial” in Artforum Fall 2010 (short exhibition preview).
“Black People Have Made Country Club Style Our Style.” Byrdie. Interview with Eden Stuart. April 2024.
“Harlem is Everywhere.” Podcast, Episodes 1 and 3. The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Harlem and Transnational Modernism Exhibition. Interview with Meghan Racklin. March 2024.
“Critical Theory to Help You Intellectualize Fashion Month and Your Closet: The Best Critical Theory Books on Fashion.” Passerby. February 2024.
“Episode 1: Principles of Drip.” 1619: The College Edition Podcast. Howard University/Spotify. Interview. October 2023.
“The Experts Bringing Black Fashion History to Fashion Education.” Fashionista. Interviewed by Janelle Sessoms. October 2023.
“An Ode to Black Women Never Putting Down Their Purses.” New York Magazine: The Cut. Interviewed by Amaya Macdonald. April 2023.
“You Don’t Know Us Negroes Author Talk with Genevieve West.” In collaboration with the screening of PBS’s American Experience documentary “Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming a Place.” February 2023.
“Stowaway Turned Artist’s Model: The Story of Pierre Louis Alexandre.” Athena Art Foundation. January 2023. My research was used for this video and previous article, “The Artist’s Model: Pierre Louis Alexandre.” April 2022.
“Episode 4: The Best, The Brightest, the Dressed.” The Invisible Seam: Unsung Stories of Black Culture and Fashion Podcast. Tommy Hilfiger and The Fashion and Race Database/Kimberly Jenkins. April 2022.
“Dandies Rebelled Against Social, Gender, and Fashion Norms for 200 Years: Some Say Time is Ripe for a Revival.” Ideas Podcast with Pedro Mendes. Canadian Broadcasting Company. April 2021.
“WaterWorks/Dive Deeper: A Drop of Midnight.” Harlem Stage. Conversation with Jason Diakité and Jonathan McCrory (part 1) and Jason Diakité and Farnaz Arbabi (part 2). October 2020. Part One and Part Two.
“Dressed Like Kings.” Interview for documentary film on global black dandyism and Swenka dress culture in South Africa. Director: Stacey Holman. Spring 2016. Aired on PBS World Channel: Afropop Short Films, February 2019.
“Black Dandyism: A Cultural History.” Dressed: The History of Fashion Podcast. Hosts: April Calahan and Cassidy Zachary. Two episodes. December 2018.
“Break This Down: Zora Neale Hurston’s Barracoon” Barnard Magazine, Spring 2018.
“Pathways to Passion: Monica L. Miller.” Interview for Barnard College series on professors and their lives/work. April 2015.
“Black Dandy: A Political Beauty.” Interview for CANAL+/French documentary on global black dandyism. Dir. Laurent Lunette and Ariel Wizman. Aired in France in April 2015.
“Nigerian Artist Continues a Family Tradition with ‘Sartorial Anarchy.’ “ NPR: Weekend Edition, The Seams. Interview with Jacki Lyden. March 2015.
“Afterword: Who Were the First Black Dandies?” Chronicle of Higher Education: Chronicle Review. Interview with Brock Read. December 2012.
“Black Dandies Fashion New Academic Identities.” Chronicle of Higher Education: Chronicle Review. Interview with Stacey Patton and Photo Essay. December 2012.
“Why Black Men Tend to Be Fashion Kings.” NPR: Tell Me More with Michel Martin. December 2012.
In The News
The Zora Neale Hurston Trust will honor the famed storyteller this winter, in serendipitous alignment with the centennial anniversary of her time as a student on campus.
Tapped by the Costume Institute to curate its annual blockbuster exhibition, professor Monica L. Miller is using her research on Black style to educate fashion enthusiasts on Black dandies.
Inspired by Miller’s research, the Costume Institute’s spring 2025 exhibition and Met Gala will focus on Black dandies with “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.”
A brand new pilot program this spring ushers in a new phase of lifelong learning and community at the College.