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