Quito J. Swan has been named the new director of the Africana Studies Program at the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. In his new role, Swan said he looks forward to nurturing the interdisciplinary nature of the Africana Studies Program while also boosting Africana studies as its own unique discipline.
He formerly taught at Indiana University, Bloomington, University of Massachusetts, Boston, and Howard University. Swan is also an award-winning author of three acclaimed books. His book, “Pauulu’s Diaspora: Black Internationalism and Environmental Justice,” explored Black internationalism across the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans’ worlds through the life and work of 20-century environmental activist Pauulu Kamarakafego. The book won the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship Book Award Prize. Another of his books, “Pasifika Black: Oceania, Anti-Colonialism and the African World,” received the Association for the Study of African American Life and History’s 2023 Best Book in African American History Award.