Maya Harakawa

Maya Harakawa (she/her) is an art historian specializing in modern and contemporary art of the African Diaspora. In her research and teaching, she focuses on the relationship between art and politics, with a particular interest in questions related to methodology and historiography. Her work challenges assumptions around what constitutes “radicalism” or “vanguardism” in Art History, using lessons derived from Black Studies to challenge the discipline’s normative values, particularly their continued investments in whiteness. The recipient of fellowships from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora, she is currently writing a monograph on art and Harlem in the 1960s.