Cara Moyer-Duncan

Associate Professor and Assistant Director, Emerson Prison Initiative
Pronouns: (She/Her/Hers)
Cara Moyer-Duncan
Email Email cara_moyer_duncan@emerson.edu

Cara Moyer-Duncan’s scholarly interests are in the areas of Africana and Cultural Studies. She teaches courses on culture and identity; Black intellectual and cultural practices; African cinema and literature; race, class and culture in South Africa; and art and social change.

Moyer-Duncan's first monograph, Projecting Nation: South African Cinemas after 1994, was published by Michigan State University Press in 2020. She is also the author of several journal articles, book chapters, and film reviews, including: “Resistance Documentaries in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Dear Mandela and Miners Shot Down,” in Journal of African Cinemas, “New Directions, No Audiences: Independent Black Filmmaking in Post-Apartheid South Africa” in Critical Interventions: Journal of African Art History and Visual Culture, and “Truth, Reconciliation and Cinema: Reflections on South Africa’s Recent Past in Ubuntu’s Wounds and Homecoming” in Art and Trauma in Africa: Representations of Reconciliation in Music, Visual Arts, Literature and Film

Moyer-Duncan came to Emerson as a Preparing Future Faculty Fellow in 2010. The Division of Social Sciences at Howard University named her as an Exemplar for her outstanding academic and research portfolio. She was a Sasakawa Young Leaders Foundation Fellow and Frederick Douglass Doctoral Scholar at Howard University. Moyer-Duncan was a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for African Studies at the University of Cape Town where she completed field research on South African cinema.

About

  • Department Marlboro Institute for Liberal Arts & Interdisciplinary Studies
  • Since 2010

Education

B.A., University of California, Santa Barbara
M.P.S., Cornell University
Ph.D., Howard University

Areas of Expertise

  • African Studies
  • Cultural Studies
  • Film

Publications

"New Directions, No Audiences: Independent Black Filmmaking in Post-Apartheid South Africa," Critical Interventions: Journal of African Art History and Visual Culture 8 (2011): 64-80.

2011

“Representations of Apartheid and Resistance in Documentary Film.” History Compass 10.2 (2012): 105-118.

2012

“Truth, Reconciliation and Cinema: Reflections on South Africa’s Recent Past in Ubuntu’s Wounds and Homecoming.” In Art and Trauma in Africa: Representations of Reconciliation in Music, Visual Arts, Literature and Film, IB Tauris, 2013.

2013

“Film Review: Miners Shot Down.” African Studies Review 58.1 (April 2015): 281-283.

2015

“Book Review: Biko’s Ghost: Iconography of Black Consciousness.” The Journal of Modern African Studies 54.3 (September 2016): 551-552.

2016

“Book Review: African Appropriations: Cultural Difference, Mimesis, and Media.” The Journal of the African Literature Association 11.2 (2017).

2017

“Resistance Documentaries in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Dear Mandela and Miners Shot Down.” Journal of African Cinemas 11.1 (Spring 2019): 47-67.

2019

Projecting Nation: South African Cinemas after 1994. MSU Press, 2020.

2020

Grants

Faculty Advancement Fund Grant, Emerson College

2017
2017-2018

Global & Civic Engagement

Co-Director, Global Pathways Program: Voices from the Margins: Contemporary South Africa

2016

Faculty, Emerson Prison Initiative, MCI Concord

2018