Crystal Eddins is a native of Ypsilanti, MI and recently earned a dual major doctorate in African American & African studies and sociology from Michigan State University. Her interdisciplinary research is concerned with issues of consciousness, culture and identity in micro-mobilization processes among members of the African diaspora. The grounding posture assumes politicized, diaspora consciousness and emergent cultural products to be the foundation of African descendants' struggles for liberation from systems of domination connected to the capitalist world-economy. She is interested in these manifestations within late 18th and early 19th century enslaved people's rebellions - particularly the Haitian Revolution, the most successful rebellion in modern history.Crystal's archival and field research in France, the United Sta,EST and Haiti has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the John Carter Brown Library, and the African American Intellectual History Society. She's presented her work at national and international forums, such as the Notre Dame Center for the Study of Social Movements Young Scholars Conference; the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora Biennial Conference; and the International Sociological Association World Congress of Sociology.In Fall 2017, Crystal will join the Department of Africana Studies faculty at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.