
Paul Ortiz
Paul Ortiz is director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program and professor of history at the University of Florida. He serves on the Faculty Advisory Council for the UF Center for Latin American Studies.
His book An African American and Latinx History of the United States was identified by Bustle as one of “Ten Books About Race to Read Instead of Asking a Person of Color to Explain Things to You.”
He is a third-generation military veteran and a first-generation university graduate. His pathway to academia included years of organizing work with the United Farm Workers, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, AFSCME, and many other unions.
Paul received his PhD in history from Duke University in 2000. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the Evergreen State College in 1990 and his Associate of Arts degree from Olympic College in 1988.
He is president of the United Faculty of Florida-UF (FEA/NEA/AFT/AFL-CIO)
Paul co-edited Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell About Life in the Segregated South which received the Lillian Smith Book Award from the Southern Regional Council.
Paul Ortiz
Paul Ortiz is director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program and professor of history at the University of Florida. He serves on the Faculty Advisory Council for the UF Center for Latin American Studies.
His book An African American and Latinx History of the United States was identified by Bustle as one of “Ten Books About Race to Read Instead of Asking a Person of Color to Explain Things to You.”
He is a third-generation military veteran and a first-generation university graduate. His pathway to academia included years of organizing work with the United Farm Workers, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, AFSCME, and many other unions.
Paul received his PhD in history from Duke University in 2000. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the Evergreen State College in 1990 and his Associate of Arts degree from Olympic College in 1988.
He is president of the United Faculty of Florida-UF (FEA/NEA/AFT/AFL-CIO)
Paul co-edited Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell About Life in the Segregated South which received the Lillian Smith Book Award from the Southern Regional Council.

Erik Steinskog
Erik Steinskog is an associate professor of musicology at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He is Dr. art. (PhD) in musicology from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), in Trondheim, Norway, with the dissertation “Arnold Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron: Music, Language, and Representation.” Current research about Afrofuturism, African-American music, and questions about music, race, gender, and sexuality. Recent publications: Afrofuturism and Black Sound Studies: Culture, Technology, and Things to Come (Palgrave 2018), “Electric Affinities: Jimi Hendrix, Richard Wagner and the Thingness of Sound” (2019), “Metropolis 2.0: Janelle Monáe’s Recycling of Fritz Lang” (2019), “On the Other Side of Time: Afrofuturism and the Sounds of the Future” (2019), “Performing race and gender: Erykah Badu between post-soul and Afrofuturism” (2017), “Analog Girl in a Digital World: Erykah Badu’s Vocal Negotiations of the Human” (2016).
Erik Steinskog
Erik Steinskog is an associate professor of musicology at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He is Dr. art. (PhD) in musicology from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), in Trondheim, Norway, with the dissertation “Arnold Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron: Music, Language, and Representation.” Current research about Afrofuturism, African-American music, and questions about music, race, gender, and sexuality. Recent publications: Afrofuturism and Black Sound Studies: Culture, Technology, and Things to Come (Palgrave 2018), “Electric Affinities: Jimi Hendrix, Richard Wagner and the Thingness of Sound” (2019), “Metropolis 2.0: Janelle Monáe’s Recycling of Fritz Lang” (2019), “On the Other Side of Time: Afrofuturism and the Sounds of the Future” (2019), “Performing race and gender: Erykah Badu between post-soul and Afrofuturism” (2017), “Analog Girl in a Digital World: Erykah Badu’s Vocal Negotiations of the Human” (2016).

Toniesha L. Taylor
One of my favorite quotes from author and scholar Zora Neale Hurston is, “research is formalized curiosity”. I have always been curious. In elementary and middle grades I was awarded most curious or most likely to ask questions (admittedly, not all of my teachers liked or encouraged this behavior). My parents loved that I asked questions. They always had answers. Although the answer was often, ” I don’t know. Why don’t you go look that one up?” My parents taught me how to formalize my curiosity – to look it up.
Recently, I contributed “Reflections on Sandra Bland on the 3rd Anniversary of Her Death” to the Online Roundtable on Sandra Bland, Black Perspectives, July 13, 2018, aaihs.org and in 2019 “Dear Nice White Ladies, A Womanist Response to Intersectional Feminism and Sexual Violence” to the forum in Women and Language 42, no. 1 (Spring 2019).
I am an affiliate of the Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies at NYU and a National Teaching partner for the Colored Conventions Project.
Toniesha L. Taylor
One of my favorite quotes from author and scholar Zora Neale Hurston is, “research is formalized curiosity”. I have always been curious. In elementary and middle grades I was awarded most curious or most likely to ask questions (admittedly, not all of my teachers liked or encouraged this behavior). My parents loved that I asked questions. They always had answers. Although the answer was often, ” I don’t know. Why don’t you go look that one up?” My parents taught me how to formalize my curiosity – to look it up.
Recently, I contributed “Reflections on Sandra Bland on the 3rd Anniversary of Her Death” to the Online Roundtable on Sandra Bland, Black Perspectives, July 13, 2018, aaihs.org and in 2019 “Dear Nice White Ladies, A Womanist Response to Intersectional Feminism and Sexual Violence” to the forum in Women and Language 42, no. 1 (Spring 2019).
I am an affiliate of the Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies at NYU and a National Teaching partner for the Colored Conventions Project.

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