FACULTY

Department Faculty

	Mark L. Chapman, Associate Professor of African and African American Studies is Chair of the Department and is currently involved in research about the black prison experience and its implications for black liberation theology. He seeks to contribute to a prophetic critique of the "criminal injustice" system, which has always incarcerated African American people at a highly disproportionate rate (blacks comprise roughly 13% of the U.S. population, but over 50% of the American prison population). While black theologians and church leaders have addressed many social, political and economic ills, they have not adequately confronted the incarceration binge and its impact on the African American community. His research seeks to address this crucial issue, paying special attention to the prophetic voices of prisoners themselves. Dr. Chapman is the author of Christianity on Trial: African American Religious Thought Before and After Black Power. Email.

	Irma Watkins-Owens is the Associate Chair of the Department of African and African American Studies, and Associate Professor of African American Studies and History. Her courses include the African American Woman, Third World and the City, and African American History. Her research focuses on the migration experiences of southern African American and Caribbean women. Dr. Watkins-Owens is the author of Blood Relations: Caribbean Immigrants in the Harlem Community 1900-1930. Email.

	Claude J. Mangum, Associate Professor of African American Studies and History, specializes in African American and Caribbean history. His research interests and publications pertain to the education of African Americans, and the experiences of African Americans in the Catholic Church. Dr. Mangum complements his scholarly pursuits by his engagement in many community service activities; formerly, as a civic association president, and presently, as an elected school board member. Email.

	Mark D. Naison is Professor of African American Studies and History and Principal Investigator of the Bronx African American History Project. Naison is the author of over 100 articles on US history, sports, popular cultre, politics and urban studies. Naison is also the author of the award-winning book, Communism in Harlem During the Great Depression, and co-editor, with Ronald Lawson, of The Tenant Movement in New York City, 1904-1984. His most recent book was a memoir entitled Whiteboy, which was reviewed in the New York Times, The Nation, and The Chronicle of Higher Education, and was the subject of feature stories on Black Entertainment Television, New York One News, and the Tavis Smiley Show on National Public Radio. Email.

	Fawzia Mustafa teaches courses in African literatures, African American literature, post-colonial literatures, colonial discourse studies, minority discourse studies, women's studies, and cultural studies at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Her monograph, V.S. Naipaul, was published in 1995 (Cambridge), and she is currently working on a long-term study of anglophone African literatures. Born in Tanzania, Fawzia Mustafa received her primary and secondary education in Britain, Tanzania, and Kenya; read for her first two degrees in Pakistan; and completed her doctorate in the United States. Prior to joining the faculty at Fordham, she taught for eighteen months in the People's Republic of China. Email.

	Amir Idris is Assistant Professor of African Studies. Dr. Idris was born and raised in Sudan and educated in Sudan, Egypt, Canada and the USA. He received his Ph.D. in African History from Queen's University, Canada, in 2000. Dr. Idris' teaching and reserach focuses on the history and politics of colonialism, slavery and race, and postcolonial citizenship in Northeast and Central Africa. He has published Sudan's Civil War: Slavery, Race and Formational Identities (Edwin Mellen Press, 2001), and recently has published Conflict and Politics of Identity in Sudan (Palgrave/Macmillan 2005). He has also published several book chapters and is currently working on a manuscript entitled, Blood is Thicker than Religion: Challenges of Democratic Citizenship in Sudan. Email.

	Brian Purnell is Assistant Professor of African and African American Studies and Research Director of the Bronx African American History Project. He received his BA from Fordham and his MA and Ph.D. in History from New York University. He teaches courses in African American History and Urban Studies, and is currently writing a book, A Movemement Grows in Brooklyn, on the civil rights and black power movements in Brooklyn, New York. Email.

	Oneka La Bennett is Research Director of the Bronx African American History Project and Assistant Professor of African and African American Studies at Fordham University. She received her PhD in Social Anthropology from Harvard University in 2002. Her research interests include popular youth culture, race, gender, West Indian migration and transnationalism. Dr. LaBennett is heading a hip hop research initiative for the BAAHP. Email.

	Jane K. Edward was born and raised in southern Sudan, and educated in Sudan, Egypt and Canada. Edward receivedher Ph.D. in Sociology in Education from the University of Toronto in 2004. Currently she is a Pot-Doctoral Fellow and Director of African Immigration Research at the Bronx African American History Project at the Department of African and African American Studies, Fordham University. Email.