The Culture Café Series allows for informal conversations between university students and faculty, staff, or administrators of color over lunch. The purpose of the event is to provide an opportunity for students to hear from faculty, staff, and administrators of color about their life experiences, careers, successes and challenges in an intimate setting. All Adelphi community members are welcome to attend the Culture Café series. Join us this month with our guest, Dr. Christopher Davis, an assistant professor in the African, Black, and Caribbean Studies Department. Professor Davis will present From Soccer Balls to Racial Science Labs: A Research Trajectory from Undergrad Student to Assistant Professor.
Dr. Christopher Davis is the Assistant Professor of History at the African Black Caribbean Studies Program at Adelphi, starting this past January. He received his doctorate in Atlantic History at Florida International University in Miami, FL, in 2018. A native of Brooklyn, NY, Dr. Davis also received his Bachelor’s in History from CUNY-Hunter College in 2012, where he was a Ronald E. McNair Scholar and a Mellon Mays Fellow. He was also a visiting instructor at Florida Atlantic University and an adjunct lecturer at St. Elizabeth University. Dr. Davis’s work examines Race, Identity, Migration, Citizenship, Eugenics, and Intellectual Circuits in American, African American, Caribbean, and Immigration histories. His primary research project focuses on the spread of racial science in the Anglophone Atlantic World, as eugenic ideas from American and English origins disrupt the anti-colonial movement in the British Caribbean.
In this presentation, Professor Davis will hold an informal talk about his journey as an academic researcher. He will begin by discussing his first research papers focusing on his interest in sports and migration in the backdrop of World Cups and dynamic changes in immigration policies. Then, he will show how these prior interests shaped his dissertation on the history of eugenics in the United States, England, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. Throughout this conversation, Professor Davis will discuss the process of applying to graduate school, the successes and pitfalls of life as a graduate student, and how he is still learning new lessons every day.
Free lunch will be provided for the first 15 attendees. If you have any allergies or dietary restrictions, please contact Robby Fahrenholtz (rfahrenholtz@adelphi.edu) for accommodations.