Dr. Chris Kovats-Bernat, an anthropologist and associate professor, joined Wilkes this fall as director of the university’s new Africana Studies program. With extensive experience studying culture, conflict, and society, Dr. Kovats-Bernat brings a deep understanding of the human experience to his classrooms.
“After my interview, I knew I wanted to be at Wilkes,” he said.
Dr. Kovats-Bernat earned his bachelor’s degree in philosophy and anthropology from Muhlenberg College in 1993, followed by his master’s degree in 1997, and his Ph.D. in anthropology from Temple University in 2001. For over 30 years, he has studied the everyday lives of street children in Haiti, exploring “how poverty, violence, and political instability shape childhood and survival.”
Dr. Kovats-Bernat said he was “drawn to anthropology because it asks deep questions about what it means to be human and how culture shapes our experience of the world.”
He explained that his fieldwork in Haiti began in 1994, and that his commitment to research has always been central to his mission of teaching and inspiring students to think critically about humanity and culture.
Recently, Dr. Kovats-Bernat has explored Haitian Vodou, describing it “as a system of healing, community, and resilience.”
During the mid-2010s, he became more deeply engaged in Africana Studies, a field that he said gave him “greater freedom to express myself as a scholar of Haiti, the world’s first Black Republic.”
Through this work, he aims “to understand and teach the full story of ourselves, the resilience, the resistance, the artistic movements, the intellectual traditions, the leadership, particularly of people of African descent whose voices and scholarship have been marginalized for far too long.”
Dr. Kovats-Bernat is currently teaching AFS 101 and AFS 298: The Black Experience in the Caribbean. He explained that AFS 298 “explores the experience of people of African descent in the Caribbean region, from the colonial period to the present.” In this course, students examine topics such as African resistance to enslavement and colonialism, the rise of Caribbean Black nationalism, childhood in the Caribbean, and various Caribbean religious traditions.
Dr. Kovats-Bernat’s current research remains rooted in ethnographic work in Haiti, although it was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. His focus has since expanded to studying the Haitian diaspora in the United States, particularly “how the religion of Vodou helps Haitians cope with scarcity and violence and offers hope for a better future.”
This academic year, the Africana Studies program at Wilkes is sponsoring several upcoming events. These include a film series launching in February 2026, a Black History Month guest lecture on Feb 24 by Dr. Scott Hancock, professor of history at Gettysburg College, and an AFS-sponsored Alternative Spring Break trip to Little Haiti in Miami.
“What excites me most about my role as Director of AFS is the chance to help students see Africana Studies not as an abstract discipline, but as a way to understand and change the world around them. The skills that students will learn in AFS are not optional in today’s world. Africana Studies students are changemakers, equipped with the tools they need to advocate for justice and equity, while turning a critical eye toward the pressing social problems of today.”
Looking ahead, Dr. Kovats-Bernat hopes that Wilkes students will take his classes and discover how Africana Studies has “always been concerned with not just cultivating a scholarly identity in students, but also a sense of community. I look forward most to building up Africana Studies as a safe place for dialogue, creativity, and social consciousness.”