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I am no longer accepting the things I

can not change. I am changing the things

I can not accept.                               

                                                              - Dr. Angela Davis

 

 

Greetings! I am Blair Marcus Proctor, PhD - writer,

activist-intellectual and Michigan State University

(MSU) alumnus in African American and African

Studies (AAAS) with a specialization in Historical Sociology and African Diaspora Studies. My dissertation research focuses on how Blackness and spatial boundaries that are historically significant shapes identity formation among South African Coloureds and New Orleans Afro-Creoles.

 

I have traveled to South Africa, and New Orleans, Louisiana for the purpose of conducting graduate-level research and participating in various academic conferences and panel discussions. I was awarded the 2016 TIAA Ruth Simms Hamilton Merit Fellowship, by the Michigan State Graduate School for completion of my dissertation.

Awards & Fellowships

Spring 2016

TIAA-CREF Ruth Simms Hamilton Merit Fellow

Awards & Fellowships

( 01 )

Awarded by Michigan State University, The Graduate School. Many descendants of the African Diaspora traveled back to Africa, specifically to South Africa for the purpose of seeking freedom, furthering the experiences of "circularity" and "communities of consciousness" among peoples of African descent, as asserted by the late Dr. Ruth Simms Hamilton in Routes of Passage: Rethinking the African Diaspora. This fellowship assisted in furthering knowledge production and adhering to Hamilton’s legacy in African Diaspora Studies.

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Summer 2014

Summer Support Fellowship

Nominated by AAAS Director–supported research and travel expenses to conduct pre-dissertation

anthropological qualitative research methods in

Westbury, Johannesburg, South Africa.            

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Summer 2013

Foreign Language and Area Studies Program

Received funding to support two summers of

intensive isiZulu training to fulfill the foreign

language requirement for doctoral study.

Education

( 02 )

Education

Summer 2017

Michigan State University

PhD in African American and African Studies (AAAS), Dissertation Committee: Dissertation Chair Glenn A. Chambers, History; Steven J. Gold, Sociology; Galen Sibanda, Linguistics; Danny Mendez, Romance and Classical Studies

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Blurred Consciousness: How Blackness and Space Shapes Identity Formation among South African Coloureds and New Orleans Creoles.  A Dissertation, Michigan State University, ProQuest: 10281989.  ProQuest, LLC, 2017.

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Summer 2007

Arizona State University

Master of Urban and Environmental Planning (MUEP),

Capstone Research Project, Central South Corridor: South Mountain Village, Phoenix, Arizona.

Summer 2005

Arizona State University

Bachelor of Science, Planning (BSP)

Teaching

( 03 )

Teaching

Fall 2018

Syracuse University,

Department of African American Studies, Fall 2018

 

AAS 231 - African American Literature Up to 1900: An Introduction 

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       The key three questions addressed during this course are:

  • Why this literature and themes in particular?

  • What was the historical-context during that period of time, place, and space?

  • How is the literature relevant to events that are transpiring in the world today?

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       Course Objectives:

  • Students will analyze and interpret complex theoretical, literary, and cultural texts by Africana Studies Scholars, and Historians (Critical Thinking, Critical Reading)

  • Students will utilize critical race theory and socio-historical analysis behind the concepts of: creolization; acculturation; seasoning; racialization (racial formation theory); slavery/enslavement; freedom; advocacy; and activism. (Critical Thinking)

  • Students will utilize these lenses to help construct thesis driven argumentative and/or exploratory essays. (Effective Written Communication)

  • Students will learn how to conduct site-research of their choice in the field of African American Studies.    (Service Learning and DH Project)                                                                                                                                                                                 Key Literature:

  • Wheatley, Phillis Poems of Various Subjects, Religious, and Moral. London, 1773.

  • Equiano, Olaudah, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, the African. London: Createspace Independent Pub., 1789.

  • Douglass, Frederick. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Boston: Library of America, 1845, 1994.

  • Jacobs, Harriett Ann. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. NYC: Skyhorse Pub., 1861.

  • Cooper, Anna Julia. A Voice from the South. NYC: Dover, 1892, 2016.

  • Wells-Barnett, Ida B. The Red Record. https://archive.org/stream/theredrecord14977gut/14977.txt, Ebook. 1895.

  • DuBois, W.E.B. The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1899.

  • DuBois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1903.

Fall 2018

Central Michigan University - Global Campus,

Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work, Fall 2018

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SOC 323 - Racism and Inequality

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       Online discussion, projects, assignments, and papers centered         on the themes of:

  • racialization/racial formation theory/the color line/social problems

  • de jure versus de facto racial segregation

  • institutionalized-racism and structural-racism versus individual racial-division and racist-incidents (mob violence/prejudice/discrimination centered on race) that occur within society

  • civil- and human-rights activism and advocacy                                                                                                                         Media and key literature applied throughout the course:

  • TEDx Talks centered on race, racism, structural-racism, and racial formation

  • PBS.org, RACE – The Power of an Illusion, Sorting People - online exercise

  • Documentaries: Peter Kunheart, King in the Wilderness (2018), HBO; Spike Lee, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in 4 Acts (2006), 40 Acres and A Mule; Stanley Nelson Jr., The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution (2015), Independent Lens/PBS

  • Smedley, Audrey. Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview. 3rd ed. Boulder: Westview Press, 2007.

  • Omi, Michael and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States, 3rd Addition. New York, London: Routledge, 1986, 2014.

  • Anderson, Carol. White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016.

May 28, 2013 

How South African languages can be developed, nurtured, and used as a medium of teaching for Africans?

University of South Africa (UNISA)

UNISA: College of Education: Department of Language, Arts and Culture Seminar

Publication

( 04 )

Publications

Michigan State University Press, 2017

“Coloured South African Consciousness:

Blurring the Lines of Identity Formation and Space”

Chapter in the edited volume New Frontiers in the Study of the Global African Diaspora: Between Uncharted Themes and Alternative Representations.

 

Glenn A. Chambers, Rita Kiki Edozie, Tama Hamilton-Wray, and co-editors

Oya’s Tornado’s Books, 2016

“Coloured South African Politics and the New Orleans Afro-Creole Protest Tradition”

Chapter in the edited volume The African World in Dialogue: An Appeal to Action!

 

Teresa N. Washington, editor

November 2013

The Underground Railroad (UGRR)

Associated with the Fact Check Team, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Researcher, Writer, and edited website launched by the Charles Wright Museum, Detroit Michigan

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LaNesha DeBardelaben, Project Manager

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