Rhon Manigault-Bryant is an assistant professor of Africana studies at Williams College. She is a scholar-artist who merges her life as a musician and vocalist with her interdisciplinary specializations in religion, gender, race, music, popular culture, and ethnographic methods. Her book Talking to the Dead: Religion, Music, and Lived Memory among Gullah/Geechee Women will soon be published by Duke University Press, and she is now at work on a book about how film and contemporary media influence mass interpretations of the black female body. Her creative endeavors have earned grants from the Ford Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. At Williams she teaches courses on research methods and ethnographic approaches to Africana studies, race and gender, and womanist/black feminist thought. She received an A.B. from Duke University, and an M.Div. and Ph.D. from Emory University.

About TEDx, x = independently organized event
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)