Darrell “SCIPOET”
Darrell is a cultural historian, science communicator and performance poet with the DNA of a trickster. His career life has always been an intersection of science and art sifted through history with an emphasis on community and individual empowerment through the same. He is on the faculty at NC State University where he teaches “Black Popular Culture: From the Blues to Afrofuturism” and “Introduction to Science, Technology, and Society.”
What most don't know is he studied microbiology and American Studies at the University of Maryland at College Park and acquired his Master of Arts degree in Creative Non-Fiction Writing from Johns Hopkins University. He engaged in the immunogenetics characterization of retroviruses at the National Cancer Institute and was a science editor for 15 years. He served as program director at the Hayti Heritage Center in Durham, NC and the North Carolina Humanities Council. He found and directed the Spoken Word Performance Poetry Ensemble in Washington, DC in 1988.
He has been published in the Washington Post, the Independent Weekly, Gargoyle, the Hip Hop Tree and in several poetry anthologies. His latest book of poetry is Somewhere Deep Down When. His more recent public programs have been the performance/lecture “Other Wonder: Black Superheroes through Time,” “The Natural History of Afrofuturia” and the curation of a series on the cultural significance of the “Black Panther” film featuring a panel discussion on the science and technology represented on screen.
His presentation of "Dream STEAM: Afrofuturist Dances with the Sciences" at the "Afrofuturism and Indigenous Futurities” conference held at UNC-Chapel Hill expounded on the use of biological science in African Diaspora speculative fiction.
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