Omari Weekes

Omari Weekes serves as an Assistant Professor in the English Department at Queens College, City University of New York, where his scholarship investigates the affective dimensions of spiritual experience for people of African descent across the Americas.

His current book project, Lurid Affinities: Sex and the Spirit in Contemporary Black Literature, analyzes how post-civil rights era writers like James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and Jericho Brown navigate sacred/profane dialectics through transgressive desires and pre-discursive intensities that shape community formation. This work positions spirituality and deviance as imbricated rather than oppositional forces in Black life, with publications appearing in The Black Scholar, The New York Times, n+1, and The Nation.

No scientific awards were documented in the source material. Professor Weekes' teaching philosophy centers on dismantling students' assumptions about identity through critical analysis, robust discussion, and character development, emphasizing that classroom impact should extend beyond semester-end evaluations into lifelong community engagement. While specific advising relationships and research grants remain unmentioned, his pedagogical approach prioritizes creating transformative learning environments focused on expansive thinking and active listening.