Genesis of Blackness in the Americas

Upcoming virtual lecture featuring Dr. Lissette Acosta Corniel, an associate professor of Latin American and Caribbean studies in the Department of Ethnic and Race Studies at the Borough of Manhattan Community College.

She will be presenting “Genesis of Blackness in the Americas: Santo Domingo, A Passport to Black Caribbean Culture and Identity,” a conversation about the first Black people to arrive in the Caribbean and how Santo Domingo (or La Española) played a key role as the main port of entry for the Transatlantic Slave Trade, leading to one of the largest diasporic Black communities and each with a distinct sense of belonging through adaptation, identity preservation, and identity development.

Lissette Acosta Corniel’s work focuses on gender, slavery, and resistance in early colonial Hispaniola and Santo Domingo. She has published several articles and book chapters and is the editor of the book Transatlantic Bondage: Slavery and Freedom in Spain, Santo Domingo, and Puerto Rico (SUNY Press, 2024). She is working on her next book, Bad Women, Contested Freedoms: Feminist Behavior in 16th Century Hispaniola. Acosta Corniel is also interested in digital humanities. She was the research associate of the www.firstblacks.org database and is the co-creator and co-director of the faculty-student research program Black Studies Across the Americas. 

Click here to register for free Zoom link.