Faculty

book

Faculty

Name Contact Specialty
Rose Brewer
Professor
839 Social Sciences
612-624-9305
[email protected]
Social and behavioral sciences, public policy and development, African diasporic studies
Njeri Githire
Associate Professor
848 Social Sciences
612-625-1687
[email protected]
African artistic and cultural production, African diasporic studies
Rahsaan Mahadeo
Assistant Professor
852 Social Sciences
612-624-9847
[email protected]
Critical race and ethnic studies, Black studies, time, abolition, radical social and political thought, youth, the life course perspective, urban sociology
Tade Okediji
Professor
868 Social Sciences
612-624-8957
[email protected]
Social and behavioral sciences, public policy and development, Africa and African diasporic studies
Yuichiro Onishi
Associate Professor
874 Social Sciences
612-625-0513
[email protected]
African American history, Asian American studies, African diaspora studies
Olivia Polk
Assistant Professor
Starting Fall 2025 Black feminist theory, queer theory, 19th and 20th century African American literature, Black visual culture, gender and sexuality studies
Ana Cláudia São Bernardo
Assistant Professor
825 Social Sciences
612-624-9847
[email protected]
Black diaspora studies, Afro-Brazilian studies, gender, women and sexuality studies, global studies, Black diasporic literatures and cultures, Black geography
Bula Sirika Wayessa
Assistant Professor
872 Social Sciences
612-624-5083
[email protected]
 
African archeology, social marginalization, the materiality of social identity, mobility, ontology, and agricultural change
Josef Woldense
Assistant Professor 
878 Social Sciences
612-624-0362
[email protected]
Elite politics; authoritarian regimes, African political institutions and social network analysis

Instructors

Name Contact Specialty
Khadar Jama
Head Somali Language Instructor
823 Social Sciences
612-624-8571
[email protected]
African languages (Somali)
Hassan Hade
Teaching Specialist
852 Social Sciences
612-624-8571
[email protected]
African languages (Somali)
Angaluki Muaka
Senior Teaching Specialist
856 Social Sciences
612-625-0185
[email protected]
African Languages (Swahili), African diasporic studies
Yolanda Williams
Lecturer
836 Social Sciences
612-624-0122
[email protected]
African American literature, art, and history

Affiliate Faculty

Affiliate faculty have homes in other departments, but hold appointments in our African American & African Studies department.

Name Contact Specialty
Cawo Abdi
Associate Professor
1033 Social Sciences Building
[email protected]
Migration, gender, race, and class, family, Islam, education, development studies, human rights, globalization, Africa, Middle East
Adam Bledsoe
Associate Professor
414 Social Sciences
612-625-6080
[email protected]
Black geographies, African diaspora, political geography
Chotsani Elaine Dean
Assistant Professor
E277 Regis Center

612-625-8096
[email protected]

Art, ceramics, sculpture
Megan Finch
Assistant Professor
310B Pillsbury Hall
[email protected]
20th and 21st-century American literature, 20th and 21st-century African American literature, Black feminist theory
Ramon Fonkoué
Associate Professor
305A Folwell Hall
612-624-7334
[email protected]
African literature and cinema, French Caribbean literature; postcolonial critique, visual and film studies, race studies
Karen Ho
Professor
395 Hubert H. Humphrey Center
612-626-1313 395
[email protected] 
Ethnography, feminist studies, political economy, US, cultural studies of finance capital, finance, globalization, and capitalism; and comparative race and ethnicity
Fayola Jacobs
Assistant Professor
295D Humphrey School
[email protected]
Environmental planning, climate change, gender, race and ethnicity, urban and regional planning
William Jones
Professor
1118 Heller Hall
612-625-6418
[email protected]
Civil Rights Movement, African Americans, 20th-century US, unions/organized labor
Douglas Kearney
Professor
310 Pillsbury Hall
[email protected]
Creative writing (poetry, nonfiction, libretto), Black aesthetics, poetics, and literature, experimental writing, writing for performance, popular/cultural criticism, hip hop studies, poetics and prosody
Dwight K. Lewis, Jr.
Assistant Professor
817 Heller Hall
612-625-6563
[email protected]
History of early modern philosophy, philosophy of human difference (e.g., race, gender, sexuality, power, decoloniality, etc), philosophy of race/Africana philosophy, social political philosophy, underrepresented philosophers
Malinda Lindquist
Associate Professor
220 Johnston Hall
[email protected]
African-American history, US history, gender history and intellectual history
Enid Logan
Associate Professor
956 Social Sciences Building
[email protected]
Race and electoral politics; Blackness in the US and Latin America, white liberalism and white conservatism, racial rhetoric, emotions and identities; The racialization of Indigeneity; Blacks and social class; race and the body
Nathaniel Mills
Associate Professor
Pillsbury Hall
612-625-8444
[email protected]
20th-century US and African American literature, literature and culture of the Great Depression, the literary left and communism in the US, Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright
Michael Minta
Professor
1337 Social Sciences
612-626-5632
[email protected]
Congressional politics, race and ethnic politics, interest group advocacy
Samuel L. Myers, Jr.
Professor
263 Humphrey School
612-625-9821
[email protected]
Academic labor markets; evaluation of anti-racism programs; field experiments measuring racialized perceptions; government procurement and contracting; income inequality in China and the economics of disability in China and the United States; microeconomic policy analysis; modeling of disadvantaged business enterprise (DBE) and emerging small business enterprise (ESBE) programs; race-neutral remedies; racial disparities in drowning and competitive swimming and in academic performance; science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workforce
August Nimtz
Professor
1327 Social Sciences
612-624-1512
[email protected]
African politics, comparative politics, ethnic politics, Marxism, political development, politics of the transition to socialism, political economy
Elliott H. Powell
Associate Professor
203 Scott Hall

72 Pleasant St SE
[email protected]

American popular music and culture, comparative and relational race studies, feminist and queer studies, Afro-Asian studies, Black cultural studies, Afro-diasporic popular music, Inter-/cross-cultural music making, Sound studies
Awa Saidy
Associate Director,
African Studies Initiative 
272 Social Sciences Building
612-626-9736
[email protected]
Intercultural and cross-cultural leadership, higher education policy - access, quality, and relevance, institutional equity, program and policy evaluation, intersection of education, gender, and international development policy and practice.
Christian Uwe
Associate Professor
146A Nicholson Hall
612-625-4445
[email protected]
Sub-Saharan and Caribbean literature, African diaspora, 20th-21st century French literature, semiotics, postcolonial criticism, sexual minorities in African arts and politics
Jamele Watkins
Assistant Professor
327C Folwell Hall
612-625-9350
[email protected]
German literature and history, Black women writers, Black/African diaspora studies, performance studies, German film

 

Faculty Emeriti

Name Specialty
Keletso Atkins Africa, African diasporic studies
Victoria Coifman Africa, African diasporic studies
John Wright African American literature, art, and history; Africa and African diasporic studies