Faculty and Staff

Micere Githae Mugo, Department Chair
Meredith Professor for Teaching Excellence
Professor of African American Studies (Poet and Playwright)
Office:200 Sims Hall
Phone:315-443-4426
or 315-443-4302
Fax: 315-443-1725
E-mail: mmmugo@syr.edu

Teaching and Research Interests:

Literature - African, African American and Caribbean; African(a) Orature; Creative Writing; Drama and Theater; Cultural and Film Studies; Women and Gender Studies; Education.

Selected Publications:

• Muthoni wa Kirima, Mau Mau Field Marshal: Interrogating Silencing, Erasure and Manipulation of Female Combatants' Texts Monograph, Harare: SAPES Books, 2004.
• Gikuyu, Shona and Ndebele Orature Ethics and Aesthetics Monograph, Harare: SAPES Books, 2004
• This is Your Critical Moment (in) Connections College of Arts & Sciences, Syracuse University, 2003
• Re-envisioning Pan-Africanism: What is the Role of Gender, Youth and the Masses? (in) Pan Africanism and Integration in Africa, Harare: SAPES Books, 2002
• Third World in Perspective. (Guest Editor, Journal), Third World Conference Foundation Inc., Chicago, 2001
• My Mother's Poem and Other Songs (Poetry), East African Book Publishers (Former Heinemann) Nairobi, Kenya, 1994
• African Orature and Human Rights (Monograph), University of Lesotho, 1990
• Visions of Africa (Literary Criticism), Kenya Literature Bureau, Nairobi, Kenya, 1978
• The Trial of Dedan Kimathi (co-authored with Ngugi), Heinemann, Nairobi, Kenya, 1976
• The Long Illness of Ex-Chief Kiti (Play), East African Literature Bureau, Nairobi, Kenya, 1976
• Daughter of My People, Sing! (Poetry), East African Literature Bureau, Nairobi, Kenya, 1976

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Omanii Abdullah
Instructor-Adjunct
Office:210 Sims Hall
Phone:443-9348
E-mail:abdullo@morrisville.edu

Teaching and Research Interests:

Traveling, poetry writing, and conducting workshops throughout the nation in correctional facilities, division for youth centers, high schools, colleges, and hospices--Also the Director of the Hank Gathers' Players (a multi-cultural troupe of traveling college student poets).

Selected Publications:

• with James V. Hatch, An Annotated Bibliography of Black Drama 1823-1977 Bowker Press, 1977
• I Wanna Be the Kind of Father My Mother Was (Poetry Collection), New Readers Press, 1993.
• Nobody Eats Fried Chicken Like Black Folks Do (Poetry Collection), Ernestine Durham Press, 1999.
• This is Gonna Hurt Me a Whole Lot More'n Hurts You (Poetry Collection). Ernestine Durham Press, 2003.

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Joan Bryant
Associate Professor
Office:208 Sims Hall
Phone: 443-4399
E-mail: jobryant@syr.edu

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Horace G. Campbell
Director, Africa Initiative
Professor of African American Studies and Political Science
Office:211 Sims Hall
Phone:443-9353
E-mail: hgcampbe@syr.edu
Homepage:http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/psc/bios/campbell_bio.htm

Teaching and Research Interests:

Politics - African, African American and Caribbean; African International Relations; Pan Africanism; Militarism and Transformation in Southern Africa; Caribbean Society Since Independence

Selected Publications:

• Reclaiming Zimbabwe. The Exhaustion of the Patriarchal Model of Liberation David Philip Publishers, Cape Town: South Africa, 2003
• The U.S. Security Doctrine and the Africa Crisis Response Initiative (Monograph) South Africa: Africa Institute of South Africa, 2000.
• Water Resources, Borders, and Regional Cooperation in Southern Africa (Monograph) Zimbabwe: African Research and Information Bureau, 1997.
• War and Peace in Angola (Monograph) Harare, Zimbabwe: Institute of Development Studies, University of Zimbabwe, 1995.
• The IMF and Tanzania: The Dynamics of Liberalisation co-editor, Harare, Zimbabwe: Southern Africa Political Economy Series Trust, 1991.
• The Siege of Cuito Cuanavale (Monograph) Uppsala: The Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1990.
• Rasta and Resistance From Marcus Garvey to Walter Rodney Trenton, NJ: African World Press, 1985.

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Linda Carty
Associate Professor
Office:205 Sims Hall
Phone: 443-9345
E-mail: lcarty@syr.edu

Research and Teaching Interests:

Gender Discourses in African Diaspora Studies; Migration and Diasporic Identities; Black Women's Labor in the Americas; Transnational Feminisms; Neocolonialism and Caribbean Studies.

Selected Publications:

• Not a Nanny: A Gendered, Transnational Analysis of Caribbean Domestic Workers in New York City (in) Decolonizing the Academy: Diaspora Theory and African New-World Studies 2003
• Gender Relations at the University of the West Indies: The More Things Change the More they Remain the Same (in) UWI, You/We Journal, Vol.8, 2002
• The Discourse of Empire and the Social Construction of Gender, (in) Scratching the Surface: Canadian Anti-Racist Feminist Thought 2000
• We're Rooted Here and They Can't Pull Us Up: Essays in African Canadian Women's History, co-author 1994
• And Still We Rise: Feminist Mobilization in Contemporary Canada, editor 1993
• Unsettling Relations: The University as a Site of Feminist Struggles, co-author 1991

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William (Bill) Cole
Professor, Musician, Composer, Educator, Writer
Office:209 Sims Hall
Phone: 443-9346
E-mail: wicole@syr.edu

Research and Teaching Interests:

Ethnomusicology, Music of the African Diaspora, and Performance Music

Selected Achievements:

Dr. Cole has served as jazz critic for top music publications such as Downbeat and Coda. He authored two works on John Coltrane and Miles Davis. He is the leader and artistic director of Untempered Ensemble and Shadrack Inc. His performances have included a number of venues such as Town Hall and Symphony Space in New York, Broadway Performance Hall in Seattle, and Hopkins Center in Hanover, New Hampshire. His use of traditional instruments from a variety of cultures has enabled him to research both their style and meaning within the culture. These instruments included the Asian double reed horns like the Chinese sonas, Korean hojok, and piri, Indian shenai and nagaswarm, Ghanaian bamboo flute, Tibetan trumpet and digeridoo. Artists who have performed and recorded with Dr. Cole include Ornette Coleman, Jayne Cortez, Julius Hemphill, Sam Rivers, James Blood Ulmer and Fred Ho. His compositions include "The Seven Cycles," "Freedom 1863," and "Seasoning the Greens." He records for the Boxholder Records label.

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Kwame Dixon
Assistant Professor
Office:206 Sims Hall
Phone: 443-3097
E-mail: dldixon@syr.edu

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Kishi Animashaun Ducre
Assistant Professor
Office:201 Sims Hall
Phone: 443-9354
E-mail: Kanimash@syr.edu

Research and Teaching Interests:

Environmental Sociology; Environmental Justice Research Methodology; Race, Class, and Gender Stratification; Geographic Information Systems & Spatial Analysis; Theater of the Oppressed and African American Research Methods.

Selected Publications:

• Racialized Spaces and the Emergence of Environmental Injustice (in) Echoes of Poisoned Well: Global Memories of Environmental Justice. Edited by Silvia Washington, Paul Rosier, and Heather Goodall. forthcoming

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Winston Grady-Willis
Director, Graduate Studies
Associate Professor
Office:212 Sims Hall
Phone:443-3005
E-mail:wgradywi@syr.edu

Teaching and Research Interests:

African American History, Southern African History, Black Radicalism

Selected Publications:

• Black Power in the South: Urban Protest and Neighborhood Activism in Atlanta, Georgia, 1966-196, (in) Presence Africaine, Spring 2001.
• The Black Panther Party: State Repression and Political Prisoners",(in) The Black Panther Party Reconsidered. Dr. Charles E. Jones (ed.), Baltimore, Black Classic Press, 1998.

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Janis A. Mayes
Associate Professor
Office:215 Sims Hall
Phone:443-9348
E-mail:jamayes@syr.edu

Teaching and Research Interests:

African and Diaspora literatures in French and English languages, International Black women's writing, and literary translation practice and studies.

Selected Publications:

• with Anne Adams, Mapping Intersections: African Literature and Africa's Development Africa World Press, 1998
• Dadie, Bernard. The City Where No One Dies Translated by Janis A. Mayes. Three Continents Press, 1986

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William H. Rowland
Assistant Professor
Executive Director of the Paul Robeson Performing Arts Company
Office: 208 Sims Hall
2223 East Genesee St.
Phone: 443-4399 or 442-2727
E-mail: wrowlan1@twcny.rr.com

Teaching & Interests:

Professor Rowland teaches theater & drama courses in the AAS Department. He is also the Executive Director of the Paul Robeson Performing Arts Company (PRPAC), an affiliated unit of the department.

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S. N. Sangmpam
Associate Professor of African American Studies
Office:217 Sims Hall
Phone:443-9943
E-mail:snsangm@syr.edu

Teaching and Research Interests:

African American Politics, African Politics,International Political Economy of the Third World, Comparative State-Society Relations and Pan-Africanism. His interests are theoretic Comparative politics, empirically oriented political theory, Third World politics and political economy, international politics, African Politics and African American Politics.

Selected Publications:

• Comparing Apples and Mangoes (forthcoming)
• Pseudocapitalism and the Over Politicized State (1994)

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Milton C. Sernett
Professor of African American Studies & History
Adjunct Professor of Religion (Retired)
Office:200 Sims Hall
Phone:443-4302
E-mail:mcs5@mac.com

Teaching and Research Interests:

African American Religious History, 19th-Century American Social Reform, the Abolitionist Movement and related topics such as the Underground Railroad (an online course).

Selected Publications:

• North Star Country: Upstate New York and the Crusade for African American Freedom, c. 1820-1870 Syracuse, 2001
• African American Religious History: A Documentary Witness Second, revised edition. Duke, 1999
• Bound for the Promised Land: African American Religion and the Great Migration Duke, 1997

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Renate (Rennie) Simson
Director, Undergraduate Studies
Professor-Adjunct of African American Studies
Office:210 Sims Hall
Phone:443-9351
E-mail:rsimson@syr.edu

Teaching and Research Interests:

19th Century African American Literature, Writing Courses

Selected Publications:

• The Depiction of African American Children as Reflected in the Works of Pre Civil War African American Authors(Forthcoming)
• Josiah Henson" (in) African American Autobiographers Emanuel Nelson (ed.) Greenwood Press,2002
• Frank Webb (in) African American Autobiographers Emmmanuel Nelson(ed.) Greenwood Press (2002)

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Kheli R. Willetts
Assistant Professor
Office:215 Sims Hall
Phone:443-9352
E-mail:krwillet@syr.edu

Teaching and Research Interests:

African American Art 1960's and 70's, Diasporic Art, Artistic Colonialism, Museum Studies (specifically education), Visual Studies, Women Artists

Selected Publications:

• Editor, Bridges Journal, Syracuse: News and Publications, Syracuse University, 1997
• With Randall Hearn, Elton Fax: Tribute to a Master (exhibition catalogues), Syracuse: News and Publications, Syracuse University 1993

Selected Newspaper/Magazine/Citations:

• The Intercom “Kheli Willetts-Speaker for Black Power on WVSC Campus”. May 26, 2000
• Syracuse New Times “Branching Out; Art Went to New Places in 1996” Oct. 10, 1996
• New York Times “Student Curators Have Special Perspective”. Sunday, Jan. 8, 1995. Section 4A p.10
• Syracuse Magazine “Hanging It Up: Student Curators Put African American Culture on Display”. Summer 1994 p.10

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Annette Adams-Brown
Assistant Artistic Director
Office: Paul Robeson Performing Arts Company
805 East Genesee Street
Phone: 442-2727
E-mail: ajadamsbrown@aol.com

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Aja-Jielle Brown
Graduate Secretary/Academic Advisor
Office:113 Euclid Ave., Rm. 302
Phone: 443-3738
E-mail:aabrow02@syr.edu

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Doreen Blenman
Office Coordinator III
Office: AAS Department-200 Sims Hall
Phone: 443-4302
E-mail:dlblenma@syr.edu

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Carol D. Charles
Managing Director
Office: Community Folk Art Center
Phone: 442-2364
E-mail:cdcharle@syr.edu

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Bethshebia Darby
Clerical Assistant
Office:MLK Library- 231 Sims Hall
Phone:443-9349
Email:bdarby@syr.edu

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Kelly Pickard
Administrative Assistant
Office: AAS Department-200 Sims Hall
Phone: 443-9344
E-mail:kspickar@syr.edu

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Gina Stankivitz
Curator
Office: Community Folk Art Center
Phone: 442-2371
E-mail:gmstanki@syr.edu

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Rosalyn Trottman
Office Coordinator
Office: Community Folk Art Center
Phone: 442-2230
E-mail:teturner@syr.edu

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Marcia Hagan
Office Coordinator
Office: PRPAC
Phone: 315-442-2727

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Angela A. Williams
Librarian
Office: MLK Library-231 Sims Hall
Phone: 443-9349
E-mail:aawillia@syr.edu