Administrative Staff
Faculty Administration
Cécile Accilien is Acting Chair of the African & African-American Studies department, in addition, she is an Associate Professor of Haitian Studies and Director of the Institute of Haitian Studies in the Department of African and African-American Studies. Her primary areas of interest include Haitian Studies, Gender Studies and Film Studies.
Clarence Lang is Professor of African and African-American Studies at The University of Kansas, and a former Langston Hughes Visiting Professor. He received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2004.
Liz MacGonagle is an African historian in the Departments of History and African & African American Studies. She is the Director of the Kansas African Studies Center (KASC). In her research, she crosses historical, geographical, and theoretical boundaries to link nation, culture, and ethnicity to processes of identity formation in African and Diasporan settings.
Office Staff: Department of African & African-American Studies
Shelly joined African & African-American Studies in the Spring of 2019. She acts as office manager, scheduling officer, and point of contact for faculty, staff, and students. She attended Baker University as a student and graduated with a business degree.
Student Staff
Zyrie is a Junior studying Social Welfare and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. He works with the Sexual Assault Prevention and Education Center (SAPEC), and is involved in several on-campus activities and clubs.
While at The University of Kansas, Ethan is a Junior who plans to major in Secondary Education, focused in the area of History and Government. He is also involved in many clubs and organizations throughout the campus.
Committee Chairs
Curriculum
Anthony Bolden (Ph.D., Louisiana State University) is an Associate Professor of African and African-American Studies. His teaching and research interests include African-American music, African-American cultural studies, popular culture, African literature, and ethnic-American literature. He has published extensively on Funk and Blues. Dr. Bolden has previously taught at the University of Alabama, University of Iowa, and Dillard University.
Student Honors
Anthony Bolden (Ph.D., Louisiana State University) is an Associate Professor of African and African-American Studies. His teaching and research interests include African-American music, African-American cultural studies, popular culture, African literature, and ethnic-American literature. He has published extensively on Funk and Blues. Dr. Bolden has previously taught at the University of Alabama, University of Iowa, and Dillard University.
Grievance
Dr. Dorthy Lee Pennington, a graduate of Rust College and the University of Kansas, is an associate professor of African and African-American Studies, and Communication Studies. She is a specialist on intercultural communication and African-American culture, the cultural discourse on trauma/terror and has taught courses on the Rhetoric of African Americans, the Black Woman, Black Male and Female Communications, among others. She has had teaching experiences at Texas Tech University and at the Department of Defense where she taught courses on Race Relations and Equal Opportunity Management.
Graduate
Jessica Gerschultz is an Assistant Professor and Graduate Studies Director in the Department of African and African-American Studies at the University of Kansas and a 2018 Hans-Robert Roemer Fellow at the Orient-Institut Beirut. She received her PhD in Art History from Emory University in 2012. Professor Gerschultz's research and teaching interests span modern and contemporary art in Africa and the Arab world, gender and materiality, and feminist art history and methodologies. Her current work centers on transregional articulations of modernism with an emphasis on tapestry and fiber art.
