Ivor Miller

Dr. Ivor Miller, a cultural historian specializing in the African Diaspora in the Caribbean and the Americas, is a non-resident Fellow of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University (2016-2018); he was a Senior Fellow at the National Museum of African Art at the Smithsonian Institution (2011-2012), and a Fulbright Scholar to Nigeria (2009-2011). He is also a Senior Lecturer in the Deparment of History, University of Calabar (2012-present). His book, “Voice of the Leopard: African Secret Societies and Cuba” (UP of Mississippi 2009/ CBAAC Lagos 2011) was awarded Honorable Mention by the Association for Africanist Anthropology. Based upon fieldwork in Nigeria, Cameroon, Cuba, and the USA, it documents ritual languages and practices that survived the Middle Passage and evolved into a unifying charter for transplanted slaves and their successors. Current research interests are the pre-colonial formation of the Ekpe (leopard) society in West Africa, as well as issues of gender in initiation societies in the African Diaspora. His first book treated the Yoruba Diaspora in the Caribbean (written with Professor ‘Wande Abimbola); his second book Aerosol Kingdom: Subway Painters of New York City, documented the early Hip hop movement in New York City.
See www.afrocubaweb.com/ivormiller/ivormiller.htm for more information.

Fellowship year: 
2018
Dr. I. (Ivor) Miller
Former visiting fellow