About me
steve núñez (he/him/they)
i am an educator, photographer, and storyteller from the #9dime, the Port city — Wilmington, nc.
I hold a master of theological studies in religion, ethics, and politics from harvard divinity school and i am currently a 4th year phd student in philosophy researching africana philosophy, Social & Political Philosophy, Philosophy of Racism, Existential Phenomenology, Philosophy of Education & Pedagogy, Gender & Sexuality, and Carceral & Abolition Studies at the university of connecticut. my dissertation project surrounds the politics and ethics of revolutionary counter-violence through the philosophical thought of david walker and Frantz Fanon.
My photographic journey involves playing in shadow and light to explore the infinite, the infinitesimal, and our position in the liminal space between the gorgeous and grotesque. I seek to utilize Divinity school training, philosophical thought, and artistic gifts of astro-, landscape-, macro, and portrait photography to tell stories about spirituality, existence, and hope.
i look to synthesize theory and praxis through public facing engagement using the written word, photography, and cinematography to raise awareness, to organize socio-political support for abolition of the prison-industrial complex, as well as to practice, promote, and pursue reparatory Justice.
Port City til I die
steve grew up in Wilmington, which he endearingly refers to as the #9Dime. after going through the New Hanover county public schools system — Mary C. Williams Elementary, Williston Middle, and Eugene Ashley High School — he enlisted in the Army on the 18X Program designed to send recruits directly through the Special Forces Qualification course. He earned his Green Beret and Special Forces Tab as a Special Forces Weapons Sergeant at the age of 20 and was assigned to 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne). After deployments to Costa Rica and Southern Afghanistan, he was honorably discharged. He went on to contract for the Department of State as a Personal Security Specialist on an Embassy Protection Detail charged with the protection of Congressional Delegations at the US Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. Over time and a number of realizations, epiphanies, affliction, and growth, núñez decided that after nearly two years in Afghanistan in service of US colonial occupation of Afghanistan, the gulf between the Islamophobic overtones and a number of life changing experiences he shared with Afghan community members led him to seek an education to better understand and acquire linguistic to better explain, and develop a theoretical framework to better account for the intersections and entrenchments of Post-9/11 Islamophobia in US policy than he had available to me at the time.
In 2013, he matriculated at UNC-Wilmington (UNCW) where he graduated with Bachelor’s of Arts Degrees in Philosophy & Religion (dual concentration) and Anthropology with minors in Middle East & Islamic Studies and Classical Studies. His time at UNCW was extremely formative in exploring possibility for change. Alongside a dear comrade, Jose Herrera, we built a veteran peer support network which led to his service on the Student Senate spearheading an initiative to establish a dedication to adequately resourcing educational and research opportunities for and about veterans (then, roughly 17% of the student body). To assist in building resources and presence of younger, Post 9/11 veterans, he was elected as Vice Chairman of the New Hanover Veterans Council, and he worked on an unpaid legislative internship in the House of Representatives on Capital Hill. Then, when he was appointed as Vice President for Governmental Relations on the UNC Association of Student Governments, representing the 225,000 students spread across the 13 campus UNC System, as a natural strategist and tactician, steve worked across North Carolina with undergraduate and graduate students, university administrators, grassroots organizers, policy makers, and politicians, to advocate for the passage of the $2 Billion Connect NC Bond which sought to invest in public goods like the parks and education. The referendum passed and the UNC System was allocated $980 million with $66 million going to UNCW for the construction of a new building primarily to house the growing College of Heath and Human Sciences. What began as an idea in his head was operationalized into monumental endeavor through a Student Senate Resolution in 2014, resulted in the materialization of a monumental structure called Veterans’ Hall dedicated to better excavate and reckon with the demons of war that the US deliberately buries. His studies and advocacy only fueled a deepened spiritual conviction to learn better to grow better, and grow better to do better, and importantly, witness and testify to the historical record.
Torn between pursuing a Master of Public Policy (MPP) at the Michigan Ford School and a Master of Theological Studies (MTS) from Harvard Divinity School, like the trajectory of one of his intellectual and spiritual ancestors, Wilmington’s famous abolitionist David Walker, his intellectual journey carried him to Boston where he completed the MTS in Religion, Ethics, and Politics under the advisement of Cornel West and Aisha Beliso-de Jesús. While they were in Cambridge, steve’s passion for change and his ethical and spiritual commitments to abolition were deepened. Early into his time at Harvard, he became a member of a student organization called the Prison Education Project where he began to be mentored by an incarcerated comrade. The relationship shaped him and incited his commitments to anti-carceral organizing and pedagogy. He was initially hired by the Petey Greene Program to teach an MIT course inside of MCI Norfolk before eventually having a security clearance denied for being on the visitor list for a person incarcerated there. In frustration, he turned to campus organizing as an opportunity to challenge, and hopefully, dismantle, the carceral network locally. He was elected as Social Justice Chair on the HDS Student Association, Representative on the Harvard Graduate Council, and Fellow on the Harvard Graduate Leadership Initiative where he began to network with like-minded abolitionist graduate students. Together a number of them came together and established what became the Harvard Prison Divestment Campaign, demanding that the university completely divest its $56 billion endowment from the prison-industrial complex. Recognized by his peers as a compassionate, transparent, and effective change maker, the student body nominated him to prepare commencement remarks and offered a homily entitled Swollen with Hope.
steve’s experiences at Harvard elicited broader theoretical questions concerning violence, which drove him to pursue doctoral studies at the University of Connecticut to study the revolutionary thought of the anti-colonial Martiniquan/Algerian psychiatrist Frantz Fanon under the tutelage of Lewis Gordon. He is currently a PhD candidate in the Philosophy Department researching africana philosophy, social & political philosophy, philosophy of racism, existential phenomenology, philosophy of education & pedagogy, gender & sexuality, and carceral & abolition studies with Graduate Certificates in Indigeneity, Race, Ethnicity and Politics and (Critical) Feminist Studies at the University of Connecticut. He is a dedicated educator teaching in both the Philosophy Department and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department at UConn where he has been recognized 5 times by the Provost’s Office for teaching excellence, and is also an adjunct professor in the Philosophy & History Department at the University of Hartford. His dissertation project surrounds the politics and ethics of revolutionary counter-violence centralizing the philosophical thought of David Walker and Frantz Fanon. He is also the Founder of the UConn Defund and Divestment Project seeking to eliminate UConn’s $18 police budget, abolish campus police, divest from the prison-industrial complex, and reallocate those monies to reckoning with the harm that such operations wreak on marginalized communities throughout the state of Connecticut.
During his PhD, he also worked on staff of the Carolina Federation as Coordinator for Training & Communications where he was dubbed the “game master” for his developed pedagogical strategies to train organizers on key institutional functions like political endorsements through online games over Zoom tailored to a post-COVID 19 organizing reality. He also helped develop and facilitate a three-part gender consciousness building exercise called Feminist Solidarity School.
steve is also a very humble, albeit, incredible photographer. Their photographic journey involves playing in shadow and light to explore the infinite to the infinitesimal, and our personal position in the liminal space between the gorgeous and grotesque. He seeks to utilize divinity school training, tried & trusted advocacy praxis, philosophical thought, ethos of care and artistic gifts of astro-, landscape-, macro, and portrait photography to tell stories about spirituality, existence, and hope. As he finishes his PhD, he hopes to begin breaking ground on a documentary film project he envisions entitled Free the Land: A Prayer toward Reparatory Justice (which began as a photo essay) seeking to display the splendor of landscapes across the US and amplify the Black and Indigenous landback movements across the US and advocate that it be returned to those with ancestral claims to it.
as founder & executive director of a North carolina-based non-profit, the association for the negotiation and unification of Black and international struggle (ANUBIS), steve looks to synthesize theory and praxis through public facing engagement using his wisdom in political philosophy and pedagogy and gifts of the written word, photography, and cinematography to raise awareness, to challenge systemic racism and coloniality through the long-term organization of the socio-political support for abolition of the prison-industrial complex, as well as to practice, promote, and pursue reparatory justice.
