College of Arts & Humanities
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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations.
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Item HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS: TWENTIETH CENTURY BLACK AMERICAN TRAVEL NARRATIVES ABOUT AFRICA(2015) Albeny, Kenyatta; Peterson, Carla; Comparative Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation argues that black American travel narratives about Africa reflect the authors' perception of their identity at particular moments in history. It suggests that these perceptions are informed by historical, political, economic, and social circumstances. Specifically, it demonstrates how associations with Africa--real and imagined--have evolved over time due to black Americans' shifting social and political status in the United States. Black American travel narratives about Africa written during the second half of the twentieth century are the focus of this study. This period is marked by drastic political and social changes taking place both in Africa and the United States including decolonization, independence, and the aftermath of apartheid and the Cold War in Africa as well as the Civil Rights movement, desegregation, and integration in the United States. Although Africa and the politics therein are the narratives' purported theme, I argue that their primary focus is black American identity. My dissertation demonstrates how black American travel writers have used their narratives about Africa to define black American identity and to clarify the relationship between black Americans and Africa. At the heart of this dissertation is an interest in these relationships and a concern about the "baggage" that black Americans bring to perceptions of their identity and relationship with Africa, particularly their historical experiences as Americans, their knowledge and understanding of Africa and its history and how that "baggage" colors their perceptions of their relationship to the continent and its people. This "baggage" includes many factors including class, gender, personal history, as well as notions of race and nationalism. Texts in this study include Richard Wright's Black Power (1954), Era Bell Thompson's Africa, Land of My Fathers (1954), Maya Angelou's The Heart of a Woman (1981) and All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986), Marita Golden's Migrations of the Heart (1983), Eddy L. Harris's Native Stranger (1992), Keith Richburg's Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa (1997) and Lynne Duke's Mandela, Mobutu, and Me (2003).Item Oral History Interview - Vivian Ojo: Namibia(2014-05) Saldana, Stephanie; Ojo, VivianThe interview I conducted was of Vivian Ojo. Vivian is a senior at Georgetown University. She is from Windhoek, Namibia which is the capital of the country. Vivian came to the U.S. to attend college making her immigration story unique in that she is an example of someone who can possibly transition into the complete immigrant experience. I see Vivian’s story as one of the new, modern immigrant that we see evolving in the United States. Themes that ran throughout our interview were development, transnationalism, religion, and education. Vivian’s opportunities and why she has ended up in the United States is based largely on her parent’s education which has influenced her desire to pursue higher education. Education has also provided Vivian with much of the mobility and agency needed to achieve a lot of the things she has in terms of migration. Development is reflective of Vivian’s desire to help her home country. Similarly, where I met Vivian plays a role in explaining her passion for development. I met Vivian this semester as a fellow intern of the ONE Campaign, a non-profit founded by Bono in 2004 that advocates to alleviate poverty and hunger in Africa. This mission of ONE is reflective of Vivian and what she hopes to accomplish through her career one day. Vivian’s ability to travel and experience new cultures are representative of transnationalism another theme in the interview. Vivian is a global citizen and has made choices in her education and life in general to assure she maintains as much of a global view as possible. Religion is another aspect of Vivian’s life that she embraces in the United States as well as her home country. Throughout the interview she credits God for providing her with the opportunities she’s had. Therefore, religion plays a role in her everyday life in shaping her values as well as a practice she’s maintained through her immigrant experience.Item Oral History Interview: Taha Ahmed(2014-05) Ahmed, Baredu S.; Ahmed, TahaItem Nigerian War - American Politics(2005-05-23) Cole, Steven R; Gordon, David M; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The Nigerian Civil War or the War of Biafran Secession began on May 27, 1967 and ended on January 12, 1970. The war cost an estimated 500,000 to one million lives, and had a particularly devastating effect on the civilians living in the Eastern Nigeria (Biafra). From its colonial beginnings, Nigeria seemed destined for regional conflict. After independence, two military led coups in 1966 highlighted the regional problems inherent in the Nigerian Federal governmental system. Less than a year after the second coup, the eastern region seceded from Nigeria and plunged the nation into a civil war for nearly three years. The United States, a reluctant participant in the war, deferred all responsibility in the resolution of the war to the British or the Organization of African Unity (OAU) until photographs of starving Nigerian children became a political liability for the U.S. government.