Bios
Mario LaMothe
Mario LaMothe is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Black Studies at the University of Illinois. His research agenda involves embodied pedagogies of Afro-Caribbean religious rituals, and the intersections of spectatorship, queerness and social justice in Black Atlantic sites. LaMothe's writing is featured in peer-reviewed and commercial publications such as emisférica, Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies, L'imparfaite, The Routledge Companion to African American Theatre and Performance (CAATP), Scalawag, and Women & Performance. Publications that relate directly to my proposal are: "Dedouble and Jeanguy Saintus' Corporeal Gifts" (emisférica 2015); co-editor of the Women & Performance special issue "Nou Mache Ansanm (We Walk Together): Queer Haitian Performance and Affiliation" (2017); "Our Love on Fire: Gay Men's Stories of Violence and Hope in Haiti" (Women & Performance, 2017); "Witnessing Queer Flights: Josué Azor's Lougawou Images and Anti-Homosexual Unrest in Haiti," in Race and Performance after Repetition, edited by Soyica Colbert, Douglas Jones, and Shane Vogel (Duke University Press 2020). He is a performance artist and curator.
Zahira Kelly-Cabrera
Zahira Kelly-Cabrera aka @Bad_Dominicana is an AfroDominicana mami, writer, DJ, singer/songwriter, visual artist, (some may say 'social media personality'), mujerista, award-winning sociocultural critic, and international speaker. Known for advocating for LatiNegra visibility and rights on social media, and unfiltered social critique, broken down in accessible language. Born in NYC and raised between Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic and the Bronx, by her mother who is a creative renaissance woman. She has been featured in a number of publications such as The New York Times, Latina, Complex, The Fader, Vibe, Cosmopolitan, Time, BBC, and many more for her sociocultural analysis and art. In her writing, dynamic use of social media, and at speaking events, she employs Indigenous-style storytelling, no-holds-barred analysis of abuse culture, colonialism, social power dynamics and critique of media and pop culture. She aims to pick apart white supremacist capitalist hetero-patriarchy from an anticolonial AfroLatina perspective.
Makina Moses
Makina Moses is a writer and a doctoral student. During her undergraduate career at Emory University, she explored intersections in Native American and African American literature, illuminating how images of death, decay, and disappearance become synonymous with state-sanctioned narratives of Indigenous genocide. Her current academic research focuses on Black and Indigenous radicalisms in the United States.