2008 STUDENTS' NEWS

Justene Hill, ANWS MA student (Cultural Track), has been admitted into two doctoral programs at Princeton and The University of Texas-Austin with full funding. She is currently writing her MA thesis on ENSLAVED AFRICAN WOMEN AND THE GENDERED LANDSCAPE OF LABOR AND CIVIC LIFE IN COLONIAL NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND: 1715-1786. This is an original study on the work roles and civic activities of enslaved African women in Newport, New England’s gateway to the Atlantic economy during the eighteenth century. Her thesis committee members are Drs. Kirsten Wood, Alexandra Diallo, and Akin Ogundiran. Tiffany Pogue, ANWS MA student (Pedagogy Track), has been accepted with full funding into Emory University’s Ph.D. program in Education. Tiffany's Masters’ thesis is titled READING THE WORLD BEYOND THE WORD: LOCATING ALTERNATIVE NOTIONS OF LITERACY IN THE LITERATURE. The thesis addresses the pedagogy of using Adinkra symbols (an Akan/Ghanaian ideographic “writing” system) for teaching critical thinking in schools, especially in Mobile, Alabama where Adinkra has been historically and organically incorporated into the embodied African-American public and private spaces. Her thesis committee members are Drs. Linda Spears-Bunton, Lisa Delpit, Akin Ogundiran Mekala Audain (ANWS Certificate Student and History Major) has been admitted into the History Graduate Program at University of Rochester, Rochester (NY) with full funding. Major Advisor: Dr. Alexandra Diallo Joshua Souliere, Ph.D. student in African History, has received an SSRC Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship that will sponsor his preliminary research in Nigeria, and enable him participate in two dissertation proposal development workshops in May and September 2008 in Urban Visual Studies. His doctoral research is titled "Religious Encounters and Urban Landscape in Zaria (Nigeria), 1500-1800". Major Advisor: Dr. Akin Ogundiran