Michelle Stephens

Michelle Stephens joined the Department of English and the Department of Latino and Caribbean Studies at Rutgers University–New Brunswick in spring 2011. She is a psychoanalyst and served as the dean of the humanities in the School of Arts and Sciences from 2017–2020. Originally from Jamaica, West Indies, she graduated from Yale University with a Ph.D. in American studies. She is the author of Black Empire: The Masculine Global Imaginary of Caribbean Intellectuals in the United States, 1914 to 1962 (Duke University Press, 2005) and Skin Acts: Race, Psychoanalysis and The Black Male Performer (Duke University Press, 2014). She has published numerous articles on the intersection of race and psychoanalysis in such journals as JAPA, Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Studies in Gender and Sexuality, and Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society. She has also coedited three recent collections in archipelagic studies: Archipelagic American Studies with Brian Russell Roberts (Duke, 2017); Relational Undercurrents: Contemporary Art of the Caribbean Archipelago with Tatiana Flores (Duke, 2017); and Contemporary Archipelagic Thinking with Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel (Rowman and Littlefield, 2020). She was a founding series coeditor of Rutgers University Press's Critical Caribbean Studies book series and sits on the editorial advisory board of Rowman and Littlefield's Rethinking the Island book series.

Publications:

• “We Have Never Been White: Afropessimism, Black Rage, and What the Pandemic Helped Me To Learn About Race (and Psychoanalysis).” Psychoanalytic Quarterly. Volume 91, Issue 2, 2022, 319-347.

• Relational Undercurrents: Contemporary Art of the Caribbean Archipelago, co-editor with Tatiana Flores. (Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA), Long Beach, CA; Fresco Books; and Duke University Press (exhibition catalog and essay collection, September 2017)).

• Skin Acts: Race, Psychoanalysis and the Black Male Performer (Duke University Press, August 2014).

Media Appearances/Speaking Engagements:

• “10 Counter-Intuitive Lessons for Leadership.” Session 2: Lessons for Leadership ACLS 2023 Leadership Institute for a New Academy, Tarrytown House, Tarrytown NY July 27th, 2023, 2-3:15pm.

• “Fleshing Out the Difference: A Black Feminist Psychoanalytics” 2022-2023 Colloquium Series Co-sponsored by the Sexuality and Gender Initiative The Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis (MIP) NY, NY, Friday, May 5th, 2023.

• “Bob Marley” zoom webinar Knowledge and Thought Leadership from the Creatives: The Revolutionary Insights from Miriam Makeba, Fela Kuti, Bob Marley and Tupac Shakur, Institute for the Future of Knowledge (IFK) The University of Johannesburg (UJ) November 23rd, 2022.

Previous Organizations: 

• Colgate University

• Mount Holyoke College

Accomplishments:

• RWJF $725K award for Black Bodies Black Health

• Mellon Foundation $15M award for ISGRJ

Upcoming Projects:

• A study of black feminist psychoanalytics

• A study of Caribbean insularity

Black Bodies, Black Health is a research project, supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Through seed grants, workshops, conferences and both scholarly and public writing, Black Bodies, Black Health incentivizes humanists, social scientists, and biomedical researchers to engage in interdisciplinary work to explore and unpack structural racism in service of creating equitable health outcomes.

https://globalracialjustice.rutgers.edu/black-bodies-black-health

A Workplace Divided gathers in survey form workers’ opinions and experiences of both workplace discrimination and employer-initiated diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.  

https://isgrjstories.rutgers.edu/sponsored-research-projects/index.html#group-section-Research-Partnerships-GzPR4d4NxN

On October 27, 2022 The Rutgers Graduate School of Education, Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice, and School of Management and Labor Relations presented the Critical Race Theory in Education Lecture with Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings entitled “Debating What’s Debatable: Understanding the CRT/I Argument.”

Our first signature fall event of 2022 was a thought-provoking and insightful conversation on an important topic with Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings, who is credited with introducing researchers and scholars in the field of education to CRT. Dr. Ladson-Billings is the Inaugural Distinguished Race and Social Justice in Education Scholar-in-Residence at Rutgers Graduate School of Education and the past president of the National Academy of Education and the American Educational Research Association (AERA).

https://globalracialjustice.rutgers.edu/event/debating-whats-debatable-understanding-crti-argument