Dr. Octavio Pascal Carrasco is an historian of American culture and music with special interest in the processes of social change, cultural resistance, and the religious imagination. As an undergraduate student at Princeton University, he worked with Cornel West, exploring the religious dimensions of Tupac Shakur’s music and death. He completed his Masters degree at Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley, CA with Rev. Dr. Gabriella Lettini. As the 2011-12 Hilda Mason teaching fellow he developed and taught the course Music & Art for Social Change and further completed his Ph.D. work with Cornel West, Daisy Machado, and Troy Messenger at Union Theological Seminary in NY, focusing on “the long sixties” as a period of profound awakening in American history. Octavio’s primary mode of transportation is walking, using the “eyes in his feet” to remain connected with his surroundings. His academic studies are grounded in his time living in Guatemala, Spain and the Czech Republic. He can be found teaching English as a second language wherever there are students and juggling book loans at ALL the local libraries.

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