Queen Meccasia Zabriskie is a passionate and creative anti-racist educator, organizer, artist, scholar, and lifelong learner. She is Associate Professor of Sociology and Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at New College of Florida, where she has held the MacArthur Endowed Professorship chair since 2019. Zabriskie received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from Northwestern University and her B.A. in Economics and African and African American Studies from Duke University. Zabriskie’s primary teaching and research interests include race, class, and gender; intersectionality; social inequality; black feminist thought; qualitative methodology; sociology of dance; performance studies; and cultural politics and performance in the African Diaspora. Zabriskie is co-author (with Dr. Harvey Young) of Black Theater is Black Life: An Oral History of Chicago Theater and Dance, 1970-2010, which traces the development of black theater and dance communities in Chicago, IL. She is also a 2020 Sarasota Magazine Unity Award recipient.

I am excited to join the Antioch community for a year as a visiting scholar in social sciences and resident fellow in the Coretta Scott King Center for Cultural and Intellectual Freedom because it will allow me to contribute to an institution that has a legacy of cultivating a commitment to innovative and critical thinking, collective work and responsibility, and freedom and social justice. I am excited about Antioch’s student-centered, collaborative educational model that values experiential learning, community engagement, collective problem-solving, and working towards positive social change. These are all values and approaches that are important in my own work and pedagogy, so I am excited to share my knowledge and experience as well as learn from the Antioch and Yellow Springs communities. The Coretta Scott King Center is an important hub of education and action that honors the legacy of a trailblazing alumna, Coretta Scott King, on whose shoulders I stand. Thus, I am excited about the opportunity to collaboratively develop a campus engagement project through the center that will positively contribute to the wonderfully bold vision that President Fernandes has for the college as a part of my residency.