47th Annual W.E.B. DuBois Lecture

Ousseina Alidou, Ph.D.
Distinguished Professor of Humane Letters
School of Arts and Science
Rutgers University-New Brunswick

Ecological Thoughts in Sahel West African Women's Literary and Cultural Narratives

In the 47th Annual W. E. B. Du Bois Distinguished Lecture, Alidou examines life and being human in West African Sahel women's ecological thoughts as articulated in their literary and cultural narratives. Alidou's aim is to expand our understanding of Sahelian women's enduring contributions to ethical engagement with environmental concerns and preservation, climate change, vulnerability, migration, gender equity, and resilience. She highlights comparative perspectives that can be drawn between the Sahel ecological thoughts and W.E.B Du Bois' sociological meditations on the intersection of race, class, gender, and environmental justice.

Ousseina D. Alidou is a Distinguished Professor of Humane Letters in the School of Arts and Science, Rutgers University-New Brunswick. She teaches in the Department of African, Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Literatures and the Graduate Program in Comparative Literature. Dr. Alidou's specialization is Theoretical Linguistics, Gender, and African Studies. She is the author of three books and co-editor of three, including Protest Arts, Gender and Social Change: Fiction and Popular Songs in Hausa Societies Across Borders (Michigan University Press, 2023); Muslim Women in Postcolonial Kenya: Leadership, Representation, Political and Social Change (University of Wisconsin Press, 2013); and Engaging Modernity: Muslim Women and the Politics of Agency in Postcolonial Niger (University of Wisconsin Press, 2005, a runner-up Aidoo-Schneider Book Prize of Women's Caucus of the Association of African Studies). She co-edited Writing through the Visual and Virtual: Inscribing Language, Literature, and Culture in Francophone Africa and the Caribbean with Renée Larrier (Lexington Books, 2015); Post-Conflict Reconstruction in Africa with Ahmed Sikainga (Africa World Press, 2006); and A Thousand Flowers: Social Struggles Against Structural Adjustment in African Universities, with Silvia Federici and George Caffentzis (Africa World Press, 2000). In addition, she has published over 50 book chapters and articles which appear in Research in African Literatures, Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika (SUGIA); Comparative Literature; Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East; and Africa Today.

Organized by the Department of Africana Studies. Cosponsored by the Center for Social Science Scholarship, the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Dean's Office, the Dresher Center for the Humanities, the Division of Professional Studies, and the Shriver Center.

Photo provided by Dr. Alidou.