About the Team
Project Directors
Dr. Kim D. Butler
Kim D. Butler is an Associate Professor in the Department of Africana Studies and Department of History at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. Her work focuses on the African diaspora, with a specialization in 20th century Afro-Brazilian history. Dr. Butler studies the challenges and possibilities of Black politics, and the political dimensions of culture. She fell in love with the many cultures of the African diaspora growing up in Brooklyn, NY at a time when virtually every corner of the Black world had a community there. That experience led her to her lifelong work on the commonalities of our struggles against anti-Blackness, and her fascination with the creativity of our responses to those challenges. With Insurgent Intersections, Dr. Butler hopes to focus attention on the specificities of Black experiences and initiatives within the larger debates around racial justice.
Dr. Shantee Rosado
Shantee Rosado is an Assistant Professor of Afro-Latinx Studies at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. Her work examines racial identities and inequalities in Latin America and among Latinxs in the US, primarily through the lenses of Black feminist and racialized emotions theorizing. As part of the Insurgent Intersections team, she is aiming to produce original knowledge about potential solutions to the many harms caused by global anti-Blackness, while acknowledging that solutions involve moving beyond the academy and engaging the power of Black creativity and activism. Dr. Rosado traces her history to Black Puerto Rican, Black Dominican, and white US-sian genealogies, and is herself a circular migrant between Puerto Rico and the US. She is from a working-poor background and was a first-generation collegegoer. Dr. Rosado is a queer ratchet feminist whose main goal is to live as freely as possible.
Dr. Akissi Britton
Akissi Britton is an Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at Rutgers-New Brunswick whose work focuses on the intersections of diaspora, Africana spiritual traditions such as Lucumí/Orisa practices, Black feminisms, Black digital studies, and gentrification/neo-liberal urban development. She is keenly interested in the work and process of diasporic connection and how Black folks create community with each other across ethnic identities and national borders to fight global anti-Blackness in myriad ways. Hailing from the People’s Republic of Brooklyn where her passion for Black liberation and diasporic Black culture was ignited as a child, Dr. Britton is looking forward to the brilliance of the scholars, activists and artists that Insurgent Intersections will bring together in the coming cycles of this project.
Graduate Project Manager
Jennie Jiang
Jennie Jiang is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. Her research focuses on taking a feminist science studies approach to understanding endocrine-disrupting chemicals, a subset of environmental toxins that affect sex and reproductive systems in human and nonhuman animals. She is broadly interested in how uneven geographies of toxicity are shaped by settler colonialism and racial capitalism, as well as anti-Blackness. She is excited to support the Insurgent Intersections project in bringing together brilliant scholars, activists, and artists whose work engages the specificities of Black experiences and future possibilities.
Conference Manager
Sydney Smith
Sydney Smith is a Ph.D. student in the Department of History at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. Her research interests include 20th century African American history, Black feminism, and Black print culture. Her current project traces the political and cultural history of Black bookstores during the Black Power era. As a Transformative Justice practitioner, Sydney is especially excited to work with Insurgent Intersections to collectively envision a future rooted in abolition, joy, and community knowledge.
