Tanya L. Saunders

Dr. Tanya L. Saunders is a sociologist and cultural studies scholar affiliated with the Language Literacy & Culture Doctoral Program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). Her research focuses on the African Diaspora’s use of the arts for social change, particularly decolonizing systems of thought in the Americas. She is a 2022 Mark Claster Mamolen Fellow at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center and a 2011-2012 Fulbright Scholar to Brazil. Saunders holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Michigan and a Master’s in International Development Policy from the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.

Her work includes the 2015 book Cuban Underground Hip Hop: Black Thoughts, Black Revolution, Black Modernity (translated into Portuguese as Modernidade Negra) and the film Afro Feminismos em Cuba, streamed on YouTube. She is currently developing her book Estéticas do Bapho: Queering Black Brazilian Artivism and Politics of Liberation. Saunders has received two Abdias do Nascimento Awards (co-recipient) and lectures widely in Latin America and the Caribbean.