African American Studies, 2020-2026

In his 1903 text entitled The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. DuBois is asked, “How does it feel to be a problem?,” by a nondescript white person, to which “[he answers] seldom a word” in relation to his Black, male identity. I, similarly, have asked myself how it feels to be a problem during my four years at Princeton. I have endured my fair share of racism and ableism from my freshman year roommate, my Academic Dean, my Assistant Dean of Student Life, and a male member of my Zee Group (who I nickname my “monster”) at Forbes College. Whether it was pushing me to take a leave of absence or to compromise my values to accommodate white privilege and recklessness. It’s due to these series of events that I attempted suicide two times my sophomore year, which ultimately led to a ten-day hospitalization at Princeton House Behavioral Health and an eight-week partial hospitalization/intensive outpatient experience at Princeton House Women's Program. All while being a full time student. Using a combination of poetry from my Creative Writing Thesis of the same name and the anthropological method of autoethnography, my argument is twofold. My main argument is that in recounting my predominantly traumatic college experience, I made the most of my time here by confronting my internalized ableism. The secondary, obvious argument is that Forbes needs to be held accountable for its mistreatment towards Disabled students. Forbes relishes marketing itself as a small, tight-knit family, yet the Academic Dean’s and Assistant Dean of Student Life’s insistence on pushing Disabled students to take a leave of absence perpetuates the idea that Disabled students have no chance of succeeding at Princeton.

Illegally, in 2024, the world’s wealthiest man’s newest start-up moved in with the imposition of the one of largest data centers to have ever been built. Musk entered unlawfully. His company refused adhere to the Clean Air Act’s mandate to obtain a Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) permit before, during, or after construction. Worse, an incessant need for continued compliance with municipal co-conspirators, which I dub the ‘colossus coalition,’ xAI polluted an area already inundated with toxic air and initiated the evisceration of the people’s sway in the public decision-making processes designed for their protection. Gas turbines fuel the data center in the frenzy to build the facility with speed and market viability. To keep operating Colossus I without the threat of environmental compliance, which threatened to undo the entire endeavor, xAI embarked on dual campaign to spread false propaganda to Memphians, of jobs and environmental stewardship, and capture the will of local elected officials meant to represent the will of the people.

Inquiries about power and relationships are at the core of this thesis. This research investigates the role of the trope of the narrating Chorus of Black women in American musical theater as written and as performed. Through the Chorus, it elucidates the relationship among race, gender, and narrative power in performance. How can the Chorus possess the most narrative power and foresight with the least amount of individuality and agency? What is the relationship between the audience and the Chorus? How did the Chorus of three Black women become a trope in American musical theater, and what does it reveal about the relationship among gender, race, and narrative power in American culture and society? This research interrogates this trope through a close reading of the musical Little Shop of Horrors (1982) and a practice-based approach to Whitney White’s Macbeth in Stride (2024). Through an analysis of the libretto and directing Macbeth in Stride, this project underscores White’s subversion of the Chorus. Through casting choices, conversations in the rehearsal room with actors, and design decisions that embody themes of the show, this thesis pairs knowledge of the Chorus with theaterpractice.

This essay explores how Black queer identities disrupt, reimagine, and expand Black Futurist visions through sartorial expression. This thesis interrogates fashion as a site of radical possibility, where garments become tools for decolonizing time, space, and embodiment. By centering queer Black narratives often marginalized in Afrofuturist discourse, this project maps a fugitive fashion imaginary: one that refuses to separate Black Futurism with is queer subtexts. Through interdisciplinary methods, from historical and visual analysis to entering the makerspace, this essay reveals how the interplay of theme, fabric, silhouette, and adornment queers futurism itself, offering a blueprint for worlds where Black queer life and representation thrives unbounded through Black Futurism.

Keywords: Black, Diaspora, Pan-Africanism, Afrofuturism, Africanfuturism, Black Futurism, Queer, Fashion, Traditionality, Futurity

Recounted through a hybrid writing style, incorporating documentary storytelling methods, as well as more traditional academic research, this thesis examines Black women’s history in basketball as a microcosm of the greater socio-political history of the United States. Through three poignant time periods, this work depicts Black women’s dominance and contradictory media representation in the sport. I argue that the amount and type of coverage these women receive, in real time and historically, mirrors the broader sociopolitical environment in the United States, ultimately fostering and nurturing their institutional erasure. In documenting this phenomenon, it is my active intention not only to highlight the systemic racism that repeatedly subjugates and oppresses Black women, but also to shine much deserved light on the impressive and inspirational under-told stories of some of these amazing women.

Keywords: erasure, Black women, women’s basketball, media representation, Ora Washington, Pearl Moore, Lusia Harris, Lisa Leslie, Sheryl Swoopes, A’ja Wilson, Angel Reese, Caitlin Clark.

Modern ‘corrective’ operations on female reproductive anatomy stem from centuries upon centuries of discourse dictating anatomical (a)typicality, (dys)functionality, and racial inferiority. “Cut, Cured" thus seeks to locate the influence of foundational racial/sexual constructions within contemporary medical intervention, sterilization, and intersex ‘treatments.’ This project gathers two distinct sets of modern case studies, tracing medical and classificatory violence imposed upon incarcerated/detained Black women and intersex-identified women. Today, it is these women—left to the whims of western surgeons and at the mercy of cruel regulatory bodies—who are most at risk for nonconsensual ‘corrective’ procedures. They are cut into, sexually ‘disarmed,’ then stitched back up, all in the name of social protection. By placing these explicit, specific occurrences of sanctioned sexual ‘correction’ in the broader context of scientific racism, this project strives to identify both resurgent and new strategies of eugenic discipline. This past decade, Americans have witnessed the overwhelming resurgence of Nazi and white nationalist ideals, with the general public favoring ‘deceased’ eugenic rhetoric. As such, it is critical that we are attentive to the reassertion of old control tactics while also identifying the new sites, victims, and strategies of power.

Threading a Nation: The Golden Stitches of Freedom Across the Fabric of Post-Independence Ghana explores how fashion became a political and cultural language in Ghana during the Nkrumah era (1957–1966). Through garments like the batakari, European couture, and wax print, this thesis examines how clothing functioned as both a tool of unity and a site of contradiction, balancing colonial legacies with national identity.

Drawing on archival sources, visual analysis, and personal reflection, it argues that fashion was not merely aesthetic but central to Ghana’s post-independence identity. From the runway to the marketplace, fashion was a performance of modernity, pride, resistance, and belonging.

Ultimately, this project aims to show that Ghana’s freedom was not only declared in speeches, but sewn into seams. Fashion, like nationhood, was negotiated: woven from inherited threads, stitched with intention, and worn with meaning.