Lasana D. Kazembe, Ph.D.

DR. LASANA D. KAZEMBE is an Emmy Award-winning poet, educator, and critical Black scholar whose work examines culture, race, history, the arts, and the social context of education. His research, teaching, activism, and creative scholarship comprise a philopraxis that explores the rich and sentient ‘lost-found’ sacred epistemologies (i.e., history, expressive forms, imaginaries, folklore, futurities) of Africana peoples and situates them as sites of memory, critical pedagogy, cultural production, and social action. Dr. Kazembe's related interests include history and historiography, the cultural foundations of art and artmaking, intellectual and mass culture, Black radical thought and transnational social movements, the politics of art and art criticism, and the genesis and genealogy of Global Black Arts Movements and the Black Intellectual Tradition.

He is the recipient of multiple teaching awards including the Indiana University Trustees Teaching Award, Burton W. Gorman Teaching Award, and the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Multicultural Teaching. His writings on education, race, and culture have appeared in numerous peer-reviewed scholarly journals including The Journal of Black Studies, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, and Race, Ethnicity and Education. Dr. Kazembe serves as Chair and Associate Professor in the IU Indianapolis School of Education, and an Adjunct Associate Professor in the IU Indianapolis Africana Studies Program. He also serves as Associate Director of the IU Indianapolis Arts & Humanities Institute and sits on the Executive Advisory Committee for the Center for Africana Studies and Culture.

Dr. Kazembe interprets and leverages creative activity as an innovative form of arts-based research, cultural teaching, and public pedagogy. During 2021-2023, Dr. Kazembe served as inaugural Artist-in-Residence at The Cabaret (a performing arts venue in Indianapolis, IN) where he conceptualized and presented twelve creative presentations including Firedance: Body + Word + Sound as Prism; The Blues and Black America; Wah Wah & Whatnot: A Love Note to Jazz; and State of the Arts: A Creative Convening on Art, Culture & Justice. Dr. Kazembe’s most previous creative project, The Voodoo of Hell’s Half-Acre: The Travelin’ Genius of Richard Wright: A Blues Poetry Opera, is a poetic meditation on the art, life, and legacy of world-renowned author Richard Wright. His newest (2024) creative project is Paul Robeson: Man of the People, a jazz poetry opera and creative meditation that explores the life, activism, and artistic legacy of Mr. Paul Robeson.