University of Minnesota
African Studies Initiative
asi@umn.edu
612-624-9007


African Studies Initiative

Faculty

Name Department Specialization Contact
Hakim Abderrezak French & Italian Mahgrebi and Beur Literature, Cinema and Music; Representations of Clandestine Migrations in Arabic, French and Spanish abder002@umn.edu
Cawo Abdi Sociology Migration; Gender, Race and Class; Family; Islam; Development Studies; Human Rights; Globalization; Africa; Middle East. cabdi@umn.edu
Akosua Addo School of Music play; international teacher education; elementary music methods; international music education; world music; Arts Integration; African Music addox002@umn.edu

Abimbola (Abi) Asojo

Interior Design

Cross-cultural design, Architectural lighting design, African architecture, Computing and design, Global design

aasojo@umn.edu
Said Ahmed African American & African Studies Somali ahme0039@umn.edu
Ronald R. Aminzade Global Studies & Sociology Historical and Comparative; Political Sociology; Sociology of Development; Nationalism; Race Relations; Social Movements; Democratic Theory aminzade@umn.edu
Semhar Araia
African American & African Studies Africa and African diasporic studies; public policy and law semhar@umn.edu
Ragui Assaad Humphrey School of Public Affairs International economic development; labor market analysis; politics and economics of the Middle East and North Africa; urban planning; poverty in developing countries; quantitative methods; women's work in developing countries assaad@umn.edu

Keletso E Atkins

African American & African Studies

Africa, African diaspora, African labor history, South African history

atkin013@umn.edu
Sophia Beal Spanish and Portuguese Studies Brazilian Literature and Cultural Studies; Lusophone-African Literature and Cultural Studies; Urban Studies; Postcolonial Studies sfbeal@umn.edu
Saloua Ben Zahra Asian Languages & Literature Arabic benz0003@umn.edu
Maria Brewer French and Italian 20th-Century French Literature, Culture, & Theatre mbrewer@umn.edu

Rose M Brewer

African American & African Studies

African American women's studies, Black family life, class gender, intersection of economy, race, racism, sociology, women's studies, critical theory, social transformation

brewe001@umn.edu
David Chapman Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development Education planning in developing countries, Government initiatives to influence practice at the school and classroom levels, with particular attention to developing countries, Role of information (and information systems) in policy formulation and education planning, Policy research, Program evaluation International issues in higher education chapm026@umn.edu

Victoria B Coifman

African American & African Studies

African history, comparative tropical history, development issues oral history, past and present urban and rural affairs, West and North African history, Islam

coifm001@umn.edu
Roderick A. Ferguson American Studies

African-American literature, queer theory and queer studies, classical and contemporary social theory, African-American, intellectual history, sociology of race and ethnic relations, black cultural theory

fergu033@umn.edu
Ana Paula Ferreira Spanish & Portuguese Portuguese, Brazilian, and Lusophone African literatures apferrei@umn.edu
Michael Gallope Cultural Studies & Comparative Literature

music and sound, continental philosophy and critical theory, visual culture Black/African diaspora, theories of modernism

mgallope@umn.edu

Njeri R Githire

African American & African Studies

African Literary and Cultural Production, Literatures of the African Diaspora, Literature of Immigration and Racial Formation in the African Diasporic Spheres, Women's Writings and Feminist Theory, Postcolonial Theory and Criticism, Francophone Studies, Food, (Non)-Eating, and Related Topics in Literature

ngithire@umn.edu
Malaika Grant Libraries Subject specialist for: African American Studies, African Studies; Harlem Renaissance; History, African; Immigration grant044@umn.edu
Carol Hakim History

nationalism and intellectual history, state formation, state-society relations, and authoritarianism in the Arab world, political and economic development of the Arab world in the late 19th- and 20th-centuries

hakimc@umn.edu
Claire Halpert Linguistics Syntax; Prosody-syntax interface; Linguistic field methods; Case and agreement; Bantu linguistics halpert@umn.edu
Abdelkader Hamouchi Asian Languages & Literature Arabic hamou006@umn.edu
Douglas Hartmann Sociology and African American & African Studies

American society, culture, ethnographic studies, field methods, mass media, Midnight Basketball outreach programs, popular culture, race, social change, social movements, social uses of recreational programming, sport culture, theory, poorly understood institution in the modern world

hartm021@umn.edu
Allen F. Isaacman History, African American & African Studies

Agrarian change, Central and Southern Africa, comparative history, peasants, rural protest, slavery and maroon communities, social history of Mozambique, the agency of ordinary people, the nature of African resistance to European colonial domination, oral history, East Africa and problems in southern Africa. racial problems in southern Africa

isaac001@umn.edu
Zenzele Isoke Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies; Political Science; and African American & African Studies

U.S. Black Women's Politics and Activism, Black Feminist Thought, Urban Studies, Urban Ethnography, Feminist Geography, Feminist Theory and Methods

isoke001@umn.edu
Jason T Kerwin Applied Economics Health and labor markets in sub-Saharan Africa (Malawi and Uganda) jkerwin@umn.edu
Hisham A. Khalek Asian Languages & Literature Arabic, Comparative International Development in Education, Languages and cultures of the Middle East and North Africa, Politics, Government, and Society of the Arab World hkhalek@umn.edu
Malinda A Lindquist History

African-American history, U.S. history, racial-gender theory, manhood in the Americas, feminist theory

lindqust@umn.edu
Enid Logan Sociology Blackness in the Americas, Contemporary U.S. Race Relations; Race & the Body, Race & Electoral Politics, Blacks and Social Class, Afro-Latin America elogan@umn.edu
Patricia Lorcin History Modern France, Western Imperialism, Colonial/Postcolonial, Mediterranean plorcin@umn.edu

Michael Lower

History

North Africa in the Middle Ages, Medieval Europe, the Crusades, Christian-Muslim Relations

mlower@umn.edu
Saje M. Mathieu History

African American history since Reconstruction, 20th century American history, Migration, social movements and political resistance

smathieu@umn.edu
Marilena Mattos Spanish & Portuguese Portuguese mmattos@umn.edu

Keith A Mayes

African American & African Studies

African-American History, 19th and 20th century, Kwanzaa and Black holidays, Civil Rights and Black Power Movement, Black History and Educational Policy, African American Public History

mayes@umn.edu
Kieran P. McNulty Anthropology

Paleoanthropology, Human and primate evolution, Geometric morphometrics, Cranial evolution and ontogeny, East Africa

kmcnulty@umn.edu
Sidow Mohammed Asian Languages & Literature Arabic, Somali moha0160@umn.edu
Angaluki Muaka African American & African Studies Swahili muaka@umn.edu
August Nimtz Political Science, African American & African Studies

African politics, comparative politics, ethnic politics, Marxism, political development, politics of the transition to socialism, political economy

animtz@umn.edu

Tade O Okediji

African American & African Studies Social and behavioral sciences, public policy and development, Africa and African diasporic studies tokediji@umn.edu
Kent D Olson Applied Economics

Agribusiness Management & Finance, Agricultural Policy,
Crop Production, Farm Management, Human Resource, Management, Sustainable Agriculture, He has worked in Sweden, Poland, Uganda, and Italy.

kdolson@umn.edu

Yuichiro Onishi

African American & African Studies

Black radicalism and internationalism, African American history, Transnational American studies, Critical race studies, Asian American studies

ohni0001@umn.edu
Sonali Pahwa Theatre Arts and Dance   pahwa007@umn.edu
Sarah Elizabeth Parkinson Humphrey School of Public Affairs Civil war and occupation, political violence, militant organizations, Middle East and North African politics, social network theory, qualitative methods, refugees sparkins@umn.edu
Leigh Payne Institute for Global Studies, Political Science Transitional justice and transitions from authoritarian rule in Latin America and South Africa lpayne@umn.edu
Helena Pohlandt-McCormick History African History pohla001@umn.edu
Paul Porter Agronomy and Plant Genetics Research and education; cropping systems, agroecology, rye cover crop, World Food Problems, Evaluating Starvation, Agroecosystems, Analysis Field Course, Agroecosystems of the World, and Environment, Global Food Production, and the Citizen; Food and Agriculture from Cairo to Cape Town at 10 mph; Food and Agriculture from Buenos Aires to Lima at 10 mph pporter@umn.edu
Ozayr Saloojee Architecture Questions of tradition and modernity in Islamic Art and Architecture, role of the sacred in architecture, work and ethic of the Ottoman architect Sinan, interest in contested landscapes and how architecture and urbanism facilitate (or deny), augment or inflect issues of identity and belonging in the cultural and political landscapes of such cities as Istanbul, Cape Town, Jerusalem and contemporary landscapes in the Arab world. saloojee@umn.edu
Abdi I. Samatar Geography

development theory and the state, capitalist development, environment and development, political economy, agrarian change, Ethnic politics, East and Southern Africa, Third World, Islamic world, Botswana, Somalia, Ethiopia

samat001@umn.edu
Daniel J. Schroeter History

Jewish studies, Middle East, North Africa, World history

schro800@umn.edu
Rachel Schurman Sociology Agri-food Studies, Political Sociology, Social Movements, Global Political Economy, Development/Post-Development Studies schurman@umn.edu
Catherine Squires Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies; Communication Studies Media, race and politics; Gender and media studies; Public sphere studies; Community-engaged research squir050@umn.edu
Charles J Sugnet English

postcolonial literature, fiction and film of the African diaspora, creative nonfiction writing, the contemporary novel, multi-cultural instruction in the high schools

sugnet@umn.edu
Shaden M. Tageldin Cultural Studies & Comparative Literature

19th- and 20th-century literatures in English, Arabic, French; Trans-African and Trans-Asian studies; Empire and postcolonial studies, Critical translation theory, Politics of language, literary form, genre; Histories and ideologies of comparative literature, Aesthetics and biologics of race, nation, culture; Literatures of migration and diaspora

tageldin@umn.edu
Martha Tappen Anthropology

human evolution and adaptations, out of Africa I, paleoenvironments, Stone Age archaeology, zooarchaeology, taphonomy

tappe004@umn.edu
Frances Vavrus Organizational Leadership, Policy and Development Comparative and international education; Education and population change; Gender and development; International development policy and practice; Secondary and teacher education in Sub-Saharan Africa

Yolanda Y Williams

African American & African Studies

African American music cultures, jazz, blues, gospel, feminism

willi233@umn.edu

John S Wright

African American & African Studies

American and Afro-American literature, intellectual history and popular culture, folklore and oral tradition, sociology of literature, feminist criticism, Harlem Renaissance, Black Arts Movement, Langston Hughes

wrigh003@umn.edu