African American Studies, 2020-2024

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.

Everyone wants to belong somewhere. The desire to belong is the foundation of communities, physical or digital. As Jamaicans migrate, they might feel their sense of belonging is threatened due to the distance between them and Yaad. However, digital communities can rectify this distance. This thesis investigates how college-aged yaadies living in the United States use the Jamaican digital diaspora to do just that. I argue that the Jamaican digital diaspora is a place for transmitting shared cultural codes, evoking diasporic emotions, and creating discourse, with the backdrop of national pride. The Jamaican digital diaspora is an accessible and participatory space that addresses college-aged yaadies needing to belong and longing for Yaad. While popular conversations of TikTok frame it as a place of mindless scrolling or a security concern, this thesis argues that it provides a space where college-age Jamaicans can negotiate their relationship with home while abroad. The cultural production in the Jamaican digital diaspora is a comedic retelling of the complex, sometimes contradicting emotions that shape the yaadie experience.

In 2020, the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia published “Digital Ethiopia 2025,” which is a 150-page agenda set forth to transform the nation through the use and expansion of various digital technologies. I refer to it hereafter as the Agenda. As 2025 nears its end, the Agenda has fallen short of several key objectives, including improving primary education and expanding the digital workforce. In this paper, I examine the Agenda’s discourse and implementation in order to shed light on the failures of foreign frameworks for local issues and the consequences for the Ethiopian working class. Ultimately, I argue that by centering African epistemologies and implementing culturally grounded and project-based technical primary education, Ethiopia can establish an internationally competitive AI workforce. My first recommendation is a primary school curriculum introducing foundational AI concepts through EthioLLM, a large language model that uses indigenous Ethiopian languages and is not yet widely deployed. This curriculum supports empowerment through mother-tongue instruction and cultivates ownership over local problem-solving. My second recommendation is the creation of a digital platform cooperative that specializes in EthioLLM-based services in order to provide a competitive alternative to traditional Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) models which often exploit the Global South. This repositions the Ethiopian working class as equal partners and co-creators of value rather than extractable labor. Together, these interventions offer a lasting model for an AI pipeline that honors African epistemologies and local priorities every step of the way, from the classroom and workforce to the global digital economy.