Heather Merrill

Heather Merrill is a Professor of Africana Studies and Director of Italian Studies at Hamilton College. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, with additional degrees from institutions including New York University and Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research focuses on race, blackness in Europe, critical human geography, and the African Diaspora in Italy. She has written extensively on topics such as Black spatial identities, intersectional discrimination, and anti-racist feminism.

Her notable works include Black Spaces: African Diaspora in Italy (2018), co-edited Spaces of Danger: Culture and Power in the Everyday (2015), and An Alliance of Women: Immigration and the Politics of Race (2006). Her current project, Black European Futures, explores Afro-Italian belonging and aesthetic spaces. She teaches courses on Black Europe, decolonial theory, and the intersections of gender, race, and globalization.

Merrill’s research methodologies emphasize ethnography and critical spatial analysis, often centered in Italy. She has been affiliated with Dickinson College as a Distinguished Visiting Associate Professor and previously served as the first woman executive director of the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues. Her work bridges geography, anthropology, and sociology to address questions of power, identity, and belonging in postcolonial contexts.

Professional affiliations include the Association of American Geographers, where she participates in specialty groups on qualitative research and gender studies. Her recent courses address themes like racism/anti-racism, gendered spatial identities, and the cultural politics of representation.