معرفی
Tsitsi Ella Jaji is the Helen L. Bevington Associate Professor of Modern Poetry and Associate Professor of English at Duke University's Trinity College of Arts & Sciences. She also holds appointments in African & African American Studies. Formerly teaching at the University of Pennsylvania, she specializes in African/African American literary and cultural studies with focus on music, poetry, and black feminisms. She earned her Ph.D. from Cornell University (2009).
Her research explores transnational cultural exchanges through music and poetry, highlighted by her award-winning book Mother Tongues (2019) and Africa in Stereo (2014). She has been recognized with fellowships from the Mellon Foundation, Radcliffe Institute, and National Humanities Center.
Her teaching spans courses like African Diaspora Literature and Liberating Archives: Remaking History through the Arts. Recent grants include a $2.5M Mellon Foundation award for musicology research (2021–2025). Her work frequently engages Pan-African cultural festivals, postcolonial modernism, and queer diasporic narratives.
- Key Awards: Cave Canem Poetry Prize (2018), Mellon New Directions Grant
- Research Focus: Black Atlantic studies, modernist soundscapes, and anti-colonial poetics
- Professional Service: Bass Connections Faculty Council, Duke Office of Anti-Racism initiatives
