African American and Afro-Diasporic Studies
As a scholar and a teacher, Monica’s most recent writing and commentary concerns the Harlem Renaissance, contemporary Black art and artists, and Black feminist writers and artists. She was a faculty expert for The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s podcast, Harlem is Everywhere, produced as part of the 2024 exhibition Harlem Renaissance and TransAtlantic Modernism, and is a consultant for an upcoming exhibition at the New York Historical Society on the LGBTQ Harlem Renaissance. At Barnard, Monica is the resident expert on writer and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, the College’s first Black alumna; she is spearheading the celebration of the centennial of Hurston’s matriculation and graduation from Barnard (2025-2028) and 100 Years of Black Students at Barnard.
Articles and Book Chapters
Recent Talks
The Harlem Renaissance: How It Feels to Be Colored Me
Barnard Next: The Vitality of the Humanities. Barnard College, June 2024.
Exploring the Imaginative and Moral Narratives in Beloved
Center for Black Literature, Medgars Evers College. New York, NY. With the Center for Fiction, part of the NEA’s Big Read. June 2022.
Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon
Reading Toni Morrison. 92nd Street Y. April 2021.
Looking for Langston at 30: A Film Screening and Roundtable Celebrating Queer Harlem
In Support of Harlem Renaissance at 100. Columbia University. New York, NY. December 2020. “Can You Feel It? Looking for Langston at 30: A Meditation.”
Media and Other Projects
“Harlem is Everywhere.” Podcast, Episodes 1 and 3. The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Harlem and Transnational Modernism Exhibition. Interview with Meghan Racklin. March 2024.
“You Don’t Know Us Negroes Author Talk with Genevieve West.” In collaboration with the screening of PBS’s American Experience documentary “Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming a Place.” February 2023.
Barnard Magazine, Spring 2018. “Break This Down: Zora Neale Hurston’s Barracoon”