Dr. Westenley Alcenat

Dr. Westenley Alcenat graduated cum laude from Macalester College with a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science & History. He received a Master’s in American History, a Master of Philosophy in American History, and a Ph.D. in History from Columbia University. Currently, Dr. Alcenat works as an Assistant Professor of History and Affiliated Assistant Professor of Urban Studies & American Studies at Fordham University. Since 2015, he has served as an Academic Director in the Great Books Summer Reading Program at Amherst College. Dr. Alcenat has taught undergraduate courses and seminars in various topics, including: Black Urban Political History, Merchants and Slaves in Atlantic Capitalism, the Radical Tradition in U.S History, and the “Modern Caribbean: From Columbus to Castro/From Slave Ships to Cruise Ships.” Dr. Alcenat’s accolades are extensive – he is a past recipient of Richard Hofstadter Fellowship from Columbia University, he has been awarded fellowships from The National Center for Institutional Diversity (NCID); Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History; the Massachusetts Historical Society; and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. Dr. Alcenat’s work has been featured through papers and presentations at conferences across the United States as well as Canada, London, Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. Dr. Alcenat has written or provided commentary to be published in The Nation, African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS), Black Perspectives Blog and The Root. He has spoken on CNN, CBS News and TRT World. Dr. Alcenat is competent in reading, writing and conversational French with fluency in Haitian/French Creole with average reading and writing competency. His manuscript in revision, “Children of Africa, Shall Be Haytians:” Prince Saunders and the Foundations of Black Emigration to Haiti, 1815-1865 is a study of the radicalism and ideologies of African-American settlers who emigrated to Haiti in the nineteenth century.