Black Leaders in Academic Publishing: 7 Stories

Nishaun T. Battle, Ph.D., Associate Professor,
Undergraduate Coordinator of Criminal Justice,
Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, Virginia State University. Author, Black Girlhood, Punishment, and Resistance: Reimagining Justice for Black Girls in Virginia

"My work centers on raising awareness and creating solutions with and for Black girls who continue to go unheard, unseen, and devalued in society. I am interested in social justice spaces intentionally designed and created by Black women, to help foster spaces of joy, affirmation, and opportunities for learning and development for Black girls. My book, Black Girlhood, Punishment, and Resistance: Reimagining Justice for Black Girls in Virginia, offers insight into social justice themes that are of interest to me, including leadership development, wellness, and sisterhood, just to name a few. Additionally, my interest in the role Black women have played and continue to play, for the advancement of Black girls, highlights the work of Janie Porter Barrett, the founder of the Virginia Industrial School for Colored Girls. Both my research and personal interests include exploring spaces created by Black women, and engaged by Black girls, in which they have the opportunity to navigate demeaning social narratives, and resist against anti-Black narratives that are stereotypical, oppressive, and limiting."

"I am passionate about Black girls having the opportunity to live their lives as girls, and not being subjected to adultification by both societies at large, and within interpersonal settings they socialize in. I want the harsh, and beautiful realities experienced by Black girls to become a part of the larger societal narrative, in helping to shape and develop programs designed for them to flourish in life. I am a strong advocate for mentorship, and as such, in addition to being a Professor, I serve as a technical assistant consultant for a nationwide mentorship program that helps individuals who want to start youth-based non-profit organizations. I also serve as a board member for a local non-profit, youth-based organization, for young Black girls and girls of color." You can learn more about Dr. Battle's research and interests at www.drnishaunbattle.com.

Louis Chude-Sokei, Ph.D., Professor Of English, George And Joyce Wein Chair In African American Studies, Director Of The African American Studies Program, Boston University. Editor in Chief, The Black Scholar. Author, Floating in A Most Peculiar Way.

"The more work I do, the harder it is to describe the work that I do. Ostensibly I’m a scholar who trained in Literary studies. Within that discipline I was able to pursue interdisciplinary commitments in performance, migration, sound, and technology. I’ve written on everything from Blackface minstrelsy in America, Africa, and the Caribbean, to the Harlem Renaissance; from the literatures of new African migration to reggae music and post-turntable sound cultures; from Anglo-American modernism, Caribbean theory, and African internet crime, to robotics, science fiction, and now Artificial Intelligence. These interests have led to extracurricular work as a sound artist and curator, working with international museums and now Carnegie Hall with whom I’m co-curating the 2022 Festival of Afrofuturism."

"Because I came into the scholarly world as a writer of non-fiction, I’ve always balanced my academic work with public writing, which ranges from newspapers, magazines and museum catalogs to belletrist work that culminated in a memoir published at the start of 2021. That memoir, Floating in A Most Peculiar Way, gave narrative to the life and work thus far." 

"What it might not have given shape to is how I became Director of African American Studies at Boston University as well as the editor in chief of The Black Scholar, one of the oldest and still leading journals of Black Studies in the United States. The memoir is the story of someone for whom 'Blackness' has had such a problematic US-centrism that Diaspora is less an organized continuity than a sphere of endless conflict, tension, and difference. As such, I never thought of my work as being 'African American' or 'Black' Studies at all! However, it is because I see Blackness as fragmented, fissured, discordant and often irreconcilable I’m able to see and hear things most others can’t, or won’t." 

Leon Heward-Mills, Managing Director, Researcher Services, Taylor & Francis

“My work is geared around developing Taylor & Francis’s services for expert research communities. It all begins with our purpose as an organization: using knowledge to foster human progress. This concept of human progress at the center of everything Taylor & Francis does is a critical starting point to think about what we do and why we do it. I endeavor every day to use my time, energy, and talents to enable the dissemination of quality, data-driven research that is essential to drive human progress.”   

“What I'm working on now with my colleagues is removing some of the friction from the process. We want to speed up the movement of research and make it as easy as possible for researchers to connect, collaborate, and disseminate good quality, trusted content. I’m committed to democratizing that research, in order to make sure that the widest and most diverse range of expert voices are heard. I'm really keen to level the field so that the best of the best can emerge, and ensure that the most relevant expert knowledge is surfaced and disseminated. Bringing diversity, equity, and fairness to academic research communication is my passion. Making sure that we’re giving researchers a voice and a trusted platform and that we are creating valued services. This work has caused me and my team to think more creatively about what we do as a business.”  

"Quality and ethical integrity is the basis of the trust on which all research and research communication has to be based. Our role is to ensure all research that we publish is thought through, validated, and properly curated. If it is wrong, we will say that it's wrong and, if necessary, working with our expert communities, will remove or adapt it. We create a place where curated, validated content can exist and evolve, where ideas collide and where thinking and insight can develop. That is what Routledge and Taylor & Francis have always done. To do this work is a privilege; it’s one of the most rewarding and one of the most vital things that anybody could be doing in communications right now."

Godwin Siundu Ph.D., Professor, University of Nairobi; Founding co-editor of Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies

"I am a literary and cultural studies scholar based at the University of Nairobi, and founding co-editor of Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies, which has regularly run since 2014. I have passionately focused on highlighting literary and cultural scholarship in and on the region for greater visibility and use across Africa and the world."

"I am driven by an understanding born from my appreciation of the limited opportunities available for scholars who are based in the region to conduct and publish innovative, timely, and relevant research that also speaks to trends and emerging philosophies of knowledge in the rest of the world. This means that little that emerges out of the region travels across the world. This problem is traceable to conceptual limitations of what is ‘new, relevant, publishable knowledge’ that is relatable to other scholars from elsewhere. The conceptual constriction is further complicated by the popularity of archaic pedagogical approaches that emphasise ‘lecture’ methodologies, which undermine dialogic exchange of ideas between our students and their lecturers. This is frustrating to everyone."

"Therefore, as a journal editor and educator based in one of the most privileged spaces of knowledge production in the Global South, I find passion in mediating instructional and publishing experiences among colleagues, current and future researchers, as a way of facilitating a deeper understanding of literary and cultural trends in eastern Africa in the current world order of knowledge-based economies."