He earned a PhD in art history from the University of Florida in 2012. Fenton’s 15 months of fieldwork and research investigation into masquerade culture and nsibidi in Calabar, Nigeria, was generously funded by the Fulbright-Hays DDRA program, two Foreign Language Area Studies grants, and the Smithsonian Institution. He is currently working towards his first book tentatively entitled Performing City: Masquerade, Space, and Power in Calabar, Nigeria.