Assistant Professor, Departments of African & African-American Studies and Art History

Ph.D., University of Iowa, May 2005
M.A., University of Iowa, 1999
B.A., San Francisco State University, 1997

Dr. Salami has a joint appointment as assistant professor in the departments of African & African-American Studies and Art History. Previously, she has been a Visiting Professor at Southern Methodist University, Dallas; at DePaul University, Chicago; and an Adjunct Instructor at the University of Illinois, Chicago.

Research

Dr. Salami’s academic expertise lies within the cultural region of Cross River State in southeastern Nigeria . She studies festival and masquerade performances within the cultural region of southeastern Nigeria/southwestern Cameroon; the culture of Yakurr people in particular.

Publications

Peer-Reviewed Articles

“Towards ‘Radical Contemporaneity’ in African Art History: The ‘Glocal’ Facet of a Kinship-based Artistic Genre.” Critical Interventions: Journal of African Art History and Visual Culture 3 (In press).

“Umor Revisited: A Diachronic Study of Sacrosanct Principles embedded in the Yakurr Leboku Festival.” African Arts. 41:3 (Autumn 2008): 54-73.

Other Articles/Chapters

“Widekum agwe chaka and tukum masks.” In Ancestors of Congo Square: Selections from the African Art Collection at the New Orleans Museum of Art, ed. William Fagaly. (Solicited; in press).

“Calabar Terracottas.” In African Terracottas in the Barbier-Müller Collection, ed. Boris Wastiou and Floriane Morin, Milan: Five Continents Editions. (Solicited; in press).

“Ubi Artist: Tribute to a Yakurr Artist from Mkpani"
Yakurr X-Ray 2:16 (2002): 8 and 2:17 (2002): 8.

"Popular Painting and Sculpture of Haiti: The Appeal of the Creole to the Post-modern Consciousness of Industrialized Nations" Baobob (1998): 17-29.

Book Review

"The Nsukka Artists and Nigerian Contenporary Art," Simon Ottenberg, ed. Seattle and London, University of Washington Press, 2002, in African Arts 38:3 (Autumn 2005): 10, 84.

Works in Progress

“‘Saa Saa’--The Instrumentality of ‘Indigenous’ Yakurr Culture to Nation Building in Postcolonial Nigeria”, (will be submitted to Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, September 2008).

Courses

Dr. Salami teaches "Introduction to African Studies" as well as introductory and advanced courses on African Art history including courses focusing on West African, Central African, South and East African, Contemporary African art, and graduate seminars on body art (global perspective) and on the art of South Eastern Nigeria. She has also taught a course on Caribbean Art with a focus on Haiti.

Academic Affiliations

• African Studies Association
• Arts Council of the African Studies Association
• College Art Association

Languages

German, French, Lokaa (beginning).
Dr. Salami is a native German speaker, is fluent in English, has studied French at an advanced level and Lokaa at an introductory level.