School of Education

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. Dr. Kazembe serves as faculty in the IU Indianapolis School of Education and the IU Indy 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’s aesthetic sensibilities are steeped in the deep, rich, sentient genealogy of Black Diasporic experiences. His work is interlaced with storied traditions found in field hollers, spirituals, blues, jazz, Hip Hop, and the deep well of Black American cultural traditions. 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 (Indianapolis, IN) where he conceptualized and presented twelve creative presentations including Firedance: Body + Word + Sound as Prism; The Blues and Black America; and Wah Wah & Whatnot: A Love Note to Jazz.

• Ph.D., University of Illinois at Chicago (2013)
• M.A., Bowling Green State University (1994)
• B.F.A., Bowling Green State University (1992)

• Urban Education/Teacher Education
• Global Black Arts Movements
• Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy
• Arts/Arts Pedagogy
• Social & Racial Justice in Education
• The Black Intellectual Tradition
• Black Education History Scholarship

• Urban Education
• Global Black Arts Movements
• Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy
• Arts and Arts Pedagogy
• Social & Racial Justice in Education
• The Black Intellectual Tradition
• Africana
• Liberatory Pedagogical Practices
• Black Education History

• Kazembe, L. D. (in development). Oxford handbook on global Black arts movements. Oxford University Press.
• Kazembe, L. D. (2025). Fattening frogs for snakes: Spirit murder, Black fightback, and epistemic justice. In Y. Medina and E. J. Blair (Eds.) Social foundations of education reader: Critical essays on teaching, learning, and leading. Peter Lang.
• Kazembe, L. D. (2025). The sacred mission: Mapping the intellectual genealogy and philopraxis of Carter Godwin Woodson. In R. E. Chennault & D. P. Alridge (Eds.) Liberation and education: Perspectives on Black educational thought. Rutgers University Press. In press.
• Kazembe, L. D. (2023). Mission and vision in curriculum studies: Activating and leveraging Woodsonian philopraxis. In K. P. Vaughan & I. Nuñez (Eds.) Enacting praxis: How educators embody curriculum studies. Teachers College Press.

• Teaching Black Arts Traditions: Exploring Social Justice Through Literary Nationalism – Digital (web-based) curriculum and history guide for teaching Global Black Arts Movements. Grant-funded research and writing project (2019-21).
• elev8te: Exploring Global Black Arts Movements. Participatory Action Research Project (2018- ).
• International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education special theme issue (two vols.) "Concepts and Categories in the Praxis of the Black Intellectual Tradition".
• The Voodoo of Hell’s Half-Acre”: The Travelin’ Genius of Richard Wright from Natchez to Chicago: A Blues Poetry Opera (2020-21).
• Arts Midwest: Poetry, People, Place - Exploring the art, lives, legacies of Mari Evans, Etheridge Knight, Freddie Hubbard, and Wes Montgomery (sponsored by Indiana Humanities' INseperable Speakers Bureau).
• Paul Robeson: Man of the People, a jazz poetry opera that explores the life, activism, and artistic legacy of Paul Robeson.
• Black Humanities in the Midwest (2025-2030)
• Firedance: Body, Word + Sound as Prism
• Time We Knew (A Salute to the Negro Leagues)