Faculty & Staff

Executive Staff

Michelle Slater is President of the Mayapple Center for the Arts and Humanities, Inc. She has been assistant professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of Wisconsin, and she has directed study abroad programs in France for Johns Hopkins University and the University of Wisconsin. She has published articles in Modern Language Notes and Contemporary French and Francophone Studies. She holds a Ph.D. in German and Romance Languages from Johns Hopkins University and she has an extensive background in music performance.

Advisory Board

Grace Aneiza Ali is an Assistant Professor and Provost Faculty Fellow in the Department of Art & Public Policy at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, and a Curator and Editor. Ali’s curatorial research practice and exhibitions chiefly focus on socially engaged global art practices as well as on contemporary art of the Caribbean and its diaspora, with a focus on her homeland Guyana. She is the founder and curator of Guyana Modern, an online platform for the contemporary arts and culture of Guyana and its diaspora.

Dana Edell, MFA, PhD is an activist-scholar-artist-educator who has created and run three different girls’ organizations since 1998 focusing on arts and activism. She runs SPARK Movement, an intergenerational and antiracist, feminist activist organization that trains and supports girls and their allies to launch global and local action campaigns.

Mohammed Naseehu Ali, a native of Ghana, is a writer and musician. He is the author of The Prophet of Zongo Street, a short story collection. Ali’s fiction and essays have been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Mississippi Review, Bomb, A Gathering of Tribes, Essence, Open City and other publications. He was the recipient of fellowships from Yaddo and The Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.

Kate Angus has a BA from Brown University with post-graduate work at Yale University and an MFA from The New School University. She is the recipient of both A Room of Her Own Foundation's "Orlando" prize, the Sozapol Fellowship from the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation, and The New York Times' "Teacher Who Made a Difference" Award. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in a number of publications including The Washington Post, Ninth leter, Best New Poets 2014, The Atlantic online, Verse Daily, Poetry Daily, and on The Academy of American Poets website.

Faculty

Mohammed Naseehu Ali, a native of Ghana, is a writer and musician. He is the author of The Prophet of Zongo Street, a short story collection. Ali’s fiction and essays have been published in The New YorkerThe New York TimesMississippi ReviewBombA Gathering of TribesEssenceOpen City and other publications. He was the recipient of fellowships from Yaddo and The Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.

Eve Aschheim is an abstract painter and draftsperson who seeks to create dynamic abstract structures that exist between categories of thought.  Her interests do not fall under the categories of image, object or design. She is after something more elusive and less stable—implied motion, states in the midst of change, a fictive reality that exists between multiple visual constructions.  An interest in geometry, drawing, and the creation and alteration of pictorial space inform her work.

David Birkin is an artist based in New York. Born in London, he studied anthropology at Oxford University, fine art at the Slade, and was a fellow of the Art & Law Program, and the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

The Cave Canem, Poets House & Serenbe Focus alum, is the author of several books including Redbone (nominated for NAACP Outstanding Literary Works), Dear Twitter: Love Letters Hashed Out On-line, recommended by Small Press Distribution & About.com Best Poetry Books of 2010. Mahogany bridges the gap between lyrical poets and literary emcee. Browne has toured Germany, Amsterdam, England, Canada and recently Australia as 1/3 of the cultural arts exchange project Global Poetics.

Dana Edell, MFA, PhD is an activist-scholar-artist-educator who has created and run three different girls’ organizations since 1998 focusing on arts and activism. She runs SPARK Movement, an intergenerational and antiracist, feminist activist organization that trains and supports girls and their allies to launch global and local action campaigns.

Pages