Bio

 Claire is a Georgia native. She is an Assistant Professor of Africana Political Thought in the Department of Politics and International Affairs and the Program of African American Studies at Wake Forest University. She received her BA in International Affairs and Africana Studies from George Washington University and her MA in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown University. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Southern California. While in DC, Claire interned with the State Department, in the Office of U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan and South Sudan and the Office of Consular Affairs, and the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

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She is currently working on her book proposal based on her dissertation project, “Hum So the Devil Doesn’t Hear You: Southern Black Rural Political Existences in the Otherwise.” An interdisciplinary study that attempts to deeply understand how we can consider otherwise possibilities of democratic engagement as practiced in the murmurs, the breaks of speech, and the hums of Black rural Southern life. 

 

Her broad research interests are social movements, decolonial theory, transitional justice, and political identity formation. Her research is anchored in traditions of critical theory and Black radicalism, with a deep commitment to emancipatory discourse around civic engagement and political participation. Specifically, she studies how song and protest can expand the notion of the political, through her study of Black Liberation movements. Claire also explores what ideas Black millennials in the United States and South Africa have inherited about freedom and citizenry in post-violence and post-transitional justice settings.