Jafari S. Allen

Jafari Sinclaire Allen (PhD Columbia 2003) is a Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University, where he directs the Institute for Research in African American Studies (IRAAS), and serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Society, and Culture. A social-cultural anthropologist and critical ethnographer by doctoral training, Dr. Allen’s work pursues generative connections and disarticulations among anthropology, feminist and queer studies, and Black studies, through a re-signification of the methodologies, theories, politics, and habits of mind of each of these sites. Dr. Allen was the Principal Investigator of the Mellon Foundation-supported Miami Initiative on Global Black Studies (2019), which catalyzed the creation of the University of Miami Center for Global Black Studies, which he founded and co-directed (with Dr. Donette Francis). Prior to the Center’s founding, Allen was Director of the Program in Africana Studies, Associate Professor of Anthropology, and affiliated faculty in the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies at University of Miami. His past appointments also include: Chair of the University of Miami’s Standing Committee on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Associate Professor of Anthropology and African American Studies at Yale University, Visiting Associate Professor of Sociology at his alma mater, Morehouse College.