People

People Details

  • Kaysha Corinealdi
  • Kaysha Corinealdi
  • Associate Professor
  • Department of Latino & Caribbean Studies and History
  • Degree: Ph.D., Yale University
  • Rutgers : At Rutgers since 2023
  • Specialty: African Diaspora History, Modern Latin American and Caribbean History, Black Feminisms, Central American Studies, Migration & Citizenship Studies

RESEARCH INTERESTS

I specialize in the history of the African diaspora in the Americas with particular attention to Central America and the Caribbean as well as circum-Caribbean migration to the United States. I am the author of Panama in Black: Afro-Caribbean World Making in the Twentieth Century (Duke University Press, 2022), which centers the activism of Afro-Caribbean migrants and their descendants as they navigated practices and policies of anti-Blackness, xenophobia, denationalization, and white supremacy in Panama and the United States. I have also published my writing in NACALA: Report on the Americas, Perspectivas Afro, Radical History Review, Public Books, the American Historical Review, Social Text, the Washington Post, The Funambulist, and Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, among other publications. I am currently working on three research projects: a series of essays on past and present day denationalization practices in the Americas; a speculative biography of Thelma King, a controversial political figure in twentieth century Panama; and a digital archive Black women electoral candidates in Central America.

At Rutgers I serve as a member of the Steering Committee for the Rutgers Advanced Institute for Critical Caribbean Studies (RAICCS) (2025-2028) and in the 2025-2026 academic year coordinated a yearlong speaker series for LCS and RAICCS on the theme of “Undisciplined: Writing and Creating Otherwise in Latinx and Caribbean Studies.” Outside of Rutgers, I have served as secretary and chair of the Caribbean Studies Section of the Conference on Latin American History (CLAH) (2020-2022), as a member of the Executive Committee of the Association of Caribbean Historians (ACH) (2026-2027), and am currently on the editorial boards of the University of North Carolina Press Latinx History Series, NACLA: Report on the Americas, and the Journal of Visual Culture. I am also a frequent collaborator with Panama-based museums and educational centers and an active member of the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars (ACWWS), the Dark Room: Race and Visual Culture Seminar, the American Studies Association (ASA), and the Museums Association of the Caribbean (MAC).

I welcome emails from prospective graduate students interested in working with me in the fields of African/African Diaspora History, African American History, and Latin American and Caribbean History.

CLASSES TAUGHT

 History of the Caribbean Since 1898.

Global Diasporas in Caribbean History. 

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Books

  • Panama in Black: Afro-Caribbean World Making in the Twentieth Century. Durham: Duke University Press, 2022

Refereed Articles

  • "Realidades y percepciones sobre lo que se aprende acerca de la historia del Canal de Panamá.” Nyasha Warren, Nadia De León, Kaysha Corinealdi, Guillermina De Gracia, and Margie Muñoz. Investigación y Pensamiento Crítico, 14:2, 2026, 59-88
  • “Feminist Educators Against State Neglect.” Radical History Review 148, January 2024, 49-68
  • “Being Fully Human: Linda Smart Chubb and the Praxis of Black Feminist Internationalism.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 47:4, Summer 2022, 931-955
  • “A Section for Women: Journalism and Gendered Promises of Anti-Colonial Progress in Interwar Panama.” Caribbean Review of Gender Studies, Issue 12, December 2018, 91-120
  • “Creating Transformative Education: Robert Beecher and Thinking Through Race and Empire from Panama to New York.” International Journal of Africana Studies, 18:2, Fall-Winter 2017, 83-103
  • “Envisioning Multiple Citizenships: West Indian Panamanians and Creating Community in the Canal Zone Neocolony.” The Global South, 6:2, Special Issue, Interoceanic Diasporas and the Panama Canal’s Centennial, Fall 2012, 87-106

Articles on Praxis & Pedagogy

  • “Activismos afrocaribeños en contra de la xenofobia: el caso panameño, 1940-1968.” Perspectivas Afro, Volume 4, Issue 1, October 2024, 10-21
  • “Making Global History Legible.” Part of AHR-Lab Issue “On Transnational and International History.” American Historical Review, Volume 128, Issue 1, March 2023, 264-269
  • “Essays from the Dark Room: Race and Visual Culture Studies Seminar.” With Sandy Alexandre, Kimberly Juanita Brown, and Eunsong Kim. Social Text 149, 39:4, December 2021, 55-73

Digital Humanities Work

  • Escuelas Afrocaribeñas en Panamá: Innovación y resiliencia comunitaria/ Afro-Caribbean Schools in Panama: Innovation and Community Resilienc. Nyasha Warren and Kaysha Corinealdi, 2026

Chapters in Edited Volumes

  • The Feminist Life of Felicia Santizo.” In Black Feminist Theories: Transnational Approaches, edited by Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, Carole Boyce Davies, Janell Hobson, Angela V. Nixon, and Christen A. Smith. Bloomsbury Academic, 2026
  • “Race.” In Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations, edited by Frank Costigliola and Barbara Keys. Cambridge University Press, 2025

Public Writing

AWARDS & FELLOWSHIPS

  • Rutgers Research Council Grant, 2025
  • Newhouse Center for the Humanities Fellow, Wellesley College, Fall 2023-Spring 2024
  • Honorable Mention, Gordon K. and Sybil Lewis Book Award, Caribbean Studies Association for Panama in Black, 202
  • Afro-Latin American Research Institute (ALARI) Fellow, Hutchins Center for African and African American Studies, Harvard University Fall2019-Spring 2020
  • Institute for Citizens and Scholars, Career Enhancement Fellow, Fall 2019