ABOUT
Prithi Kanakamedala
Prithi is an Associate Professor in the History Department at Bronx Community College of the City University of New York where she teaches U.S. History, African-American History, and the History of New York City. Her research looks at community-building, race, and citizenship in Brooklyn and New York’s 19th-century free Black communities.
As a public historian she regularly gives talks and lectures to the general public and has worked with a range of cultural organizations including Danspace Project Inc, Place Matters/ City Lore, Brooklyn Historical Society (now Center for Brooklyn History at Brooklyn Public Library), and Weeksville Heritage Center. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Sussex and is originally from Liverpool, England.
Wes Gibson, Chief of Staff Administration, Kimara Andre, Special Events Planner, Shameka Boyer, Deputy Commissioner
Michael Rakowitz, Dread Scott, Nabiha Syed, Kazembe Balagun
Scholarship
Current Projects: The DeGrasse Family of the City of New York; 1970s Black Activism at Bronx Community College CUNY; Brooklyn Abolitionists (full-length monograph).
“Plymouth Church.” A People’s Guide to New York City, edited by Penny Lewis, Emily Tumpson Molina, Carolina Munoz. Los Angeles: University of California Press, forthcoming.
“‘In Honor of Himself’: Entrepreneurship and Economic Self-Determination in Antebellum Brooklyn, New York.” African American Literature in Transition, 1750-2015, Volume 2: 1800-1830, edited by Jasmine Nichole Cobb and Joycelyn Moody, Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.
The City Amplified: Oral Histories and Radical Archives, a collection of essays from The City Amplified Working Group at the Graduate Center CUNY, co-edited by Prithi Kanakamedala and Allison Guess, New York: Printed at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, 2019.
“St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery.” Dancing Platform Praying Grounds: Blackness, Churches, and Downtown Dance. Catalog. New York, NY: Danspace Project, 2018.
“Considered a Citizen of the United States”: George DeGrasse, a South Asian in Early (African) America.” Indo-American Encounters in the Early Republic, edited by Anupama Arora and Rajender Kaur, Palgrave, 2017
“We Must Stand United”: Activism, Achievement, and Community at Bronx Community College https://unitedstandbcc.org
Media & Public Lectures
I’ve commented on the history of slavery, nineteenth-century New York, and Brooklyn and New York’s pre-Civil War free Black communities for a variety of media outlets including BBC World Service, Newsweek, Flatbush + Main Podcast, New York Times, W-NYC, Wall Street Journal, W-ABC 7, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and CBS News New York.
Segment by Aundrea Cline-Thomas for CBS News New York, February 2020
Public Program with Julie Golia, NYPL, Doc Chat, New York Public Library, September 2020
W-NET/ THIRTEEN/ PBS Web Series to accompany The Woman in the Iron Coffin (Secrets of the Dead), November 2018
Interview with Julie Golia and Zaheer Ali for Flatbush + Main, a podcast for Brooklyn Historical Society, February 2018
“New York City would really rather not talk about its slavery-loving past,” by Alexander Nazaryan, Newsweek, April 2015
“Post Civil War Brooklyn“, Video Public Program with Dr. Carla Peterson, Brooklyn Historical Society, C-SPAN January 2014
Teaching
At Bronx Community College CUNY, Professor Prithi Kanakamedala teaches HIS 20 American Nation, a one-semester U.S. history survey course, HIS 37 African-American History, and HIS 51 History of New York City.
She has also team-taught Voices of the City, an interdisciplinary graduate seminar, with Dr. Tarry Hum (Queens College CUNY and The Graduate Center CUNY) supported by the Futures Initiative at The Graduate Center CUNY, and Narratives of New York: Literature and the Visual Arts in the Master’s of Liberal Studies (MALS) Program also at
The Graduate Center CUNY.
contact
Dr. Prithi Kanakamedala
Associate Professor, Department of History
Bronx Community College of the City University of New York
2155 University Ave, Bronx, NY 10453
(e) prathibha [dot] kanakamedala [at] bcc [dot] cuny [dot] edu
Photo Credits: © Brooklyn Abolitionists (Pure + Applied), Weeksville/ Vera List (Rathkopf Photography), Bronx Community College Hall of Fame (BCC Communication and Marketing)
