J. Lorand Matory comes to Duke after 18 years at Harvard. Photo credit: Jared Lazarus

Durham, NC - J. Lorand Matory, the new chair of African and African-American Studies, can rap for a cause. The D.C.-native was able to put his skills to use at an event earlier this fall for the Durham Public Schools. The father of a high school sophomore, Matory joined other PTA parents for a "Kitchen Table Conversation," intended to address Durham's achievement gap among African American boys.

"I was chosen by my group to rap and received some notoriety for it," said Matory. He laughed at the memory, but the fact is performance is important to the cultural anthropologist.

Matory often incorporates performance into his classes. He researches the trans-Atlantic comings and goings of the Yoruba religion, conducting extensive field research in Brazil, Nigeria and the U.S. with the support of organizations such as the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

He also researches ethnic diversity in Black North America. He is the author of Black Atlantic Religion: Tradition, Transnationalism and Matriarchy in the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé (Princeton University Press), which was named the best book of the year from the Association of African Studies. He also received accolades for an earlier book, Sex and the Empire That Is No More: Gender and the Politics of Metaphor in Oyo Yoruba Religion.

He is currently researching a book on the history and experience of Nigerians, Trinidadians, Ethiopians, black Indians, Louisiana Creoles and other ethnic groups that make up black North American society.

Matory spent 18 years at Harvard, teaching classes on Afro-Atlantic religions and Afro-Latino society. He said he chose Duke because of its commitment and support of faculty with families. The father of two, Matory arrived to Duke last summer and immediately began getting to know his new faculty colleagues.

"I like how professors here at Duke know each other personally. They know each other's family lives and social lives are much more integrated with their professional lives," he said.

He also appreciates the university's emphasis on interdisciplinarity and is already considering how African and African American Studies can be re-structured to work with other units to fulfill several of the university's strategic goals.

"This department is already among the top-ranked. I'm thinking about how we can create the best department in the world within the next 10 years," said Matory. "The age and depth of Duke's commitment to knowledge in service to society principle is foundational to African and African American Studies as we know them today. Therefore, AAAS stands to become a flagship program."

He has plans to expand the AAAS certificate program.

"Students would learn skills in literary analysis as well as qualitative psychology and cultural analyses -- combine to new models of scholarship," Matory said.

Organization and administrative support are also areas he'd like to improve.

"As incoming chair, I face the need to put together a cooperative team of people to organize and administer our undergraduate, graduate and faculty programs so that faculty would be free to render services to teaching."

He's also interested in encouraging interdisciplinarity within academic tracks in the department, creating groups which could, for example, research themes in the literature of multiple nations or slavery throughout the diaspora and Atlantic world. He's looking to share programming with global health, the Divinity School and DukeEngage, helping to enrich the student experience abroad.

In the meantime, look for Matory either in performance or riding his bike through Durham and the Duke campus. He is often spotted with a bike helmet tucked under his arm, and he's looking forward to picking up the cello again, taking lessons at Duke's String School. He's already mastered the violin.