Core Faculty
- Ousseina Alidou
- Distinguished Professor, African Languages and Literatures
- Email: ousseina.alidou@rutgers.edu
- Phone: 848-445-4301
- Office hours: Mondays and Wednesdays 10:30am to 12:30pm
- Room #: 6162
- Office address: 15 Seminary Place Room 6162, College Avenue Campus
- Education:
Ph.D. Theoretical Linguistics, Indiana University (Bloomington)
M.A. Applied Linguistics (Literacy Studies), Indiana University (Bloomington)
M.A. Linguistics, Université Abdou Moumouni (Niamey, Republic of Niger) - Areas of Research/Interest:
Ousseina D. Alidou is Professor in the Department of African, Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Literatures and the Graduate Program in Comparative Literature. She is a theoretical linguist whose research focuses mainly on the study of women’s orality and literacy practices in African Muslim societies; African Muslim women’s Agency and gender justice; African women’s literatures; Gendered discourses of identity and the politics of cultural production in African Muslim societies.
Awards, Fellowships and Selected External Services
- UNESCO BREDA, Main Advisor and Editor, Gender and Transformative Leadership Curriculum for African Universities and NGOs, 2013-current.
- Board Member of African Studies Association (ASA), 2013-2016.
- Chair, Association of African Studies Programs (AASP), 2010-2011
- Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship, December 23, 2014.
- The Warren I. Susman Award for Excellence in Teaching- Rutgers University 2010-2011
- Africa America Institute, Distinguished Alumni Award, December 2010
- Rutgers University, Board of Trustees Research Fellowship for Scholarly Excellence, April 2006
- Ford Foundation Research Grant, Human Rights and Social Justice, November 2005.
- University of Hamburg, GERMANY, Visiting Professor, Department of Linguistics and African Studies and Graduate Faculty of Intercultural Education, 2003
- University of Lueneburg, GERMANY, Graduate Faculty of Cultural Studies, Visiting Scholars’ Writing Fellowship Award, (Apr-July) 2002
- Rutgers University Research Council Award, 2001-2002
Books (single authored and co-edited)
- Writing through the Visual and Virtual: Inscribing Language, Literature and in Francophone Africa and Culture in Africa and the Caribbean. Co-edited with Renée Larrier. Lexington Books (After the Empire: The Francophone World and Postcolonial France Series), 2015.
- Muslim Women in Postcolonial Kenya: Representation, Leadership and Social Change. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2013.
- Post-Conflict Reconstruction in Africa. Co-edited with Ahmed Sikainga. Trenton: Africa World Press, 2006.
- Engaging Modernity: Muslim Women and the Politics of Agency in Postcolonial Niger. Madison:University of Wisconsin Press, 2005. (Runner-up, Aidoo-Snyder Book Prize, Women’s Caucus of the African Studies Association, 2007)
- A Thousand Flowers: Social Struggles against Structural Adjustment in African Universities. Co-edited with Silvia Federici and George Caffentzis. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2000.
Book Chapters and articles
- “Women, Religion and the Discourse of Legal Ideology in Niger Republic” with Hassana Alidou (Africa Today, Vol 54 (3) Spring 2008: 21-36.
- “Muslim Women in a Multilingual Context: Orality and Literacy in Postcolonial Niger” in Issues in Political Discourse Analysis, Vol 1 (1), 2006: 89-106.
- “The Emergence of Written Hausa Literature” In The Cambridge History of African and Caribbean Literature. Edited by Abiola Irele and Simon Gikandi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, February, 2004, 329-356.
- “Islam, Gender and Hausa Folklore: A Reconfiguration of a Hausa ‘Cinderella’ Tale” Comparative Literature, Vol. 54 (3), Summer 2002: 242-255.
- “Boundaries of Fatherhood in Farah's Secrets” In Emerging Perspectives on Nuruddin Farah. Edited by Derek Wright. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2002: 661-678.
- “French Colonial Education and its Postcolonial Legacy in Francophone Africa” in Visionen fur das Bildungssystem in Afrika (Reflections on Education Systems in Africa). Edited by Lawford Imunde. Loccumer Protokolle 05/02, Rehburg-Loccum: Loccum Akademie, (July) 2002: 51-64.
- “Gender, Narrative Space and Modern Hausa Literature.” Research in African Literatures, Vol. 32 (2), Summer 2002: 137-153.
- “The World Bank and the Collapse of Francophone Africa's Educational System.” in A Thousand Flowers: Social Struggles Against Structural Adjustment in African Universities. Co-edited with Silvia Federici and George Caffentzis. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2000: p. 37-42.
- “Women, Gender and Freedom of Expression: Sub-Saharan Africa” in The Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures. Edited by Suad Joseph. Leiden: Brill Publishing, 2004:152-153.
- “Women, Gender and Freedom of Expression: Sub-Saharan Africa” in The Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures. Edited by Suad Joseph. Leiden: Brill Publishing, 2004:152-153.
- “Women in Niger” in The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Women’s Issues Worldwide: Sub-Saharan Africa. By Lynn Walter (Editor in chief) and Aili Mari Tripp (Volume editor), Westport, CT and London, UK: Greenwood Press, 2003, 295-310.
Work in Progress
- Gender, Islam and Popular Culture in the Sahel (work in progress)
- Courses:
- Women Writers of Africa/African Feminism (Undergraduate Course) and (Graduate Seminar)
- Introduction to African Literature in Translation (undergraduate course)
- African Folklore (undergraduate course)
- Crossroads: Classical Literatures of Africa, the Middle East and South Asia (undergraduate course)
- Islam and African Women Writers (Graduate Course)
