In celebration of its 55th anniversary, the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies (DAAS) continued its monthly Faculty Forum series through the winter 2026 semester. These talks, each given by a different faculty member, offered opportunities for colleagues, staff, students, and campus community members to learn about the many research topics, creative projects, and intellectual pursuits within the department.
Associate Professor Aliyah Khan: “‘Is Black Brown?’ Digitizing Islam and Independence at the Walter Rodney National Archives of Guyana”
Associate Professor Aliyah Khan discussed her work with the Government of Guyana to preserve and reinterpret Guyana’s archival history through a decolonial lens. Her digitization project at Guyana’s Walter Rodney National Archives focuses on recovering early- to mid-20th century histories of Muslim and Hindu communities in the country. Using content from periodicals such as the Indian Opinion, Voice of Islam, and Guyana's only historical Black Muslim newspaper, The Clarion, Khan showed how religious and cultural groups historically shared spaces, celebrated holidays together, and contributed collectively to a national identity, challenging simplified, present-day narratives about race and belonging.
However, with Guyana’s 200-year-old newspapers deteriorating beyond repair, digitization was needed for proper preservation. This was no easy feat. Khan faced technical and ethical challenges, learning completely new metadata methods, managing endless tagging, navigating unclassified classification systems, and addressing how to preserve archives without causing harm. Khan also highlighted the structural inequalities embedded in archival access, which often depended on personal connections. Even today, the archives are largely restricted to Guyanese citizens who are able to visit in person, limiting access for global research and engagement. Ultimately, Khan’s work underscores the importance of making archival materials accessible. Archives are not neutral repositories, Khan argued, but active sites where histories of race, religion, and independence are continually shaped and explored.
Teaching Professor Scott Ellsworth: “Trade Publishers, Literary Agents, and Opinion Pages: Bringing Scholarship to Popular Audiences”
In February, Teaching Professor Scott Ellsworth explored a central question: how does one bring scholarship to a popular audience? Drawing from his experience as author of multiple narrative nonfiction books, including The Ground Breaking: The Tulsa Race Massacre and an American City’s Search for Justice and Midnight on the Potomac: The Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination, and the Rebirth of America, Ellsworth discussed his commercial writing process, from early research to drafting, editing, publishing, and reaching an audience. Good writing is not just about knowledge, he argued, but also about clarity, storytelling, revision, and understanding how to take ideas beyond an academic space.
Ellsworth emphasized the difference between university presses and trade publishers. While academic presses prioritize peer review and specialized knowledge, they often have limited reach. With commercial trade publishers, “story is paramount.” For those interested in approaching a trade publisher, Ellsworth outlined four key steps: first, develop a strong book proposal to sell your idea and yourself as the writer. A book proposal typically includes a hook, chapter outlines, a sample chapter, research plan, planned audience, and comparable books. Next, craft a clear “elevator pitch”: a one-to-two-minute explanation of why your book matters and why you’re the person to write it. Then, write a concise query letter to literary agents introducing your project and offering to share the full proposal. Finally, attempt to secure a literary agent who will advocate for your book, refine your writing, and pitch it to publishers. Together, these steps position a writer to enter the competitive publishing market, where proposals are refined, circulated, and could enter bidding wars among publishers.
Ellsworth’s advice included several tips learned along the way. For example, he developed his writing style by studying bestselling popular nonfiction, classic novels and short stories, and first-rate modern journalism to understand their style. He also emphasized the importance of connecting one’s specific subject to larger, global narratives. Most importantly, he encouraged persistence: strong writing takes time, revision, and resilience. His message was simple: Don’t be deterred; learn, adapt, and keep writing!
Assistant Professor SaraEllen Strongman: “Cultivating Black Feminist Community at Azalea”
In March, Assistant Professor SaraEllen Strongman demonstrated how Black feminist and Black lesbian writers in the 1970s and 1980s built intellectual and social communities through literary culture. Using insights from her forthcoming book, The Social Life of Black Feminism, Strongman showed how relationships among Black women writers at the time were constructed through letters, biographies, conferences, and small-scale publications. In an era when mainstream feminist presses frequently excluded women of color — particularly queer Black women — these writers created their own networks and platforms for expression.
Central to Strongman’s talk was the story of Azalea, a “Third World” feminist magazine that emerged from collectives like the Jemima Writers Group and prioritized collaboration, mutual critique, and self-definition. Azalea enabled Black writers to develop their voices outside of racist, sexist, and homophobic constraints. While such publications were often self-produced and distributed with limited resources, they nevertheless carried immense cultural significance. Azalea featured poetry and prose that showcased Black lesbian love and desire while fostering a sense of belonging and validation among contributors and readers alike.
Strongman underscored the importance of conferences and archiving in sustaining these vibrant literary communities where writers could connect, share work, and know they were not “writing in a vacuum.” While financial challenges eventually shuttered Azalea in 1983, its legacy endures as a powerful example of how Black feminist publishing created spaces for survival, creativity, and collective care. At its core, Strongman argued, Black feminist publishing was never just about producing literature. It was about building a life-sustaining community.
Associate Professor David Doris: “A Natural History of Immortality (Fragment)”
Associate Professor David Doris invited his audience to think critically about how we interpret art, culture, and meaning. Arguing that objects are never neutral, Doris showed how their meanings are shaped by the histories, relationships, and power structures around them. He encouraged us to consider not only what objects are but also what they do and how they reflect and create meaning.
“We humans tend to be fascinated by shiny objects, which describe for us the many shapes power takes in the world,” Doris said. “We are also fascinated by our ability to create and decode the many shiny objects that comprise the world, especially those that mirror us back to ourselves as dazzling, purified beings, and convince us of our magnificence, remind us that we are exceptional among life forms, the only species with the capacity to conceive the terms of its own immortality.”
Doris told the story of the Ògbóni (Òbóni), a society of elders in Yorùbá culture whose members act as advisers, judges, and guardians of the social order. Their power comes from the earth itself, enduring and absolute, expressed beyond symbolic objects. The Ògbóni wear special brass necklaces called Edan Ògbóni, with paired brass staffs depicting male and female figures joined by a chain. An iron core runs through each figure, representing their philosophy that originates from the earth itself. In Ògbóni culture, iron is a conduit of earthly power and transformation. As it rusts, it returns to soil, reflecting the Ògbóni belief that individuals are absorbed back into the earth, where power exists in its most primordial, formless state (àse pààpàà). Doris argued that art should be viewed as active and relational rather than fixed. The Ògbóni philosophy reframes “power” as something ongoing and uncontainable, challenging the human desire for permanence. What we call “immortality” may not lie in preservation, but in a continuous cycle of becoming and returning.
