Institute for African American Research
Fall 2015: Volume 8, Issue 1
Dr. Leslie Bow to Speak at
USC for Fall Event
This fall the Institute for African American Research will
welcome Professor Leslie Bow. Dr. Bow holds a joint appointment
as a Professor of English and Asian American Studies at the
University of Wisconsin. She is the author of Betrayal & Other
Acts of Subversion: Feminism, Sexual Politics, and Asian American
Women’s Literature, published by Princeton University Press in
2001, and her latest work, ‘Partly Colored’: Asian Americans and
Racial Anomaly in the Segregated South published by New York
University Press in 2012 received an Honorable Mention from
the Association for Asian American Studies. This work explores
Jim Crow from the perspective of the unaccommodated. Looking
at Asian Americans’ distinctive station in the south, according
to Bow, provides a fresh analysis of and critical insight into race
construction. Her work uncovers the complexity, repertoire,
and limits of Jim Crow. As part of the Institutes’ ongoing guest
lectureship series, Bow will share a few of her findings with us in
a lecture titled “‘Partly Colored’: Asian Americans Between Black
and White.”
Bow is currently working on a racial fantasy monograph
that explores the relationship between race and desire in portrayals
of cultural difference. She examines “the veiled saturation of
racial signs in imaginary depictions of social hierarchy in order to
understand the utility of fantasy in American culture in general
and its implications for Asian Americans in particular.” She is
also editing a four-volume series, Asian American Feminisms,
for Routledge, comprised of transnational scholarship on Asian
American women’s issues across academic disciplines.
Dr. Leslie Bow’s lecture, “‘Partly Colored’: Asian Americans between
Black and White,” will take place on October 14, 2015
in Room 431 at Gambrell Hall.
The event will start at 7:00pm.
Dr. Leslie Bow
Inside This Issue
Page 2 & 3
• Introducing 2015-2016
Research Fellows &
New Staff
•
•
•
•
Page 4
IAAR hosts Bilinski
Fellows
Event Calendar
Staff Directory
Committee Members
Offices
L239, 2nd Floor
Thomas Cooper Library
University of South Carolina
Columbia, SC 29208
Phone: 803-777-0645/4472
Welcome Brian
Robinson and
Andrew Kettler
to the IAAR staff
Andrew Kettler is a Ph.D. Candidate
in the History
Department at
the University of
South Carolina. He
researches the use of
olfactory language
in the making of
racial, class, and gendered metaphors
used to assert forms of state, religious,
and patriarchal power during the
Enlightenment. His dissertation,
“Odor and Power in the Americas,”
focuses on the importance of an
aromatic subaltern class consciousness
in the making of Atlantic era
resistance to state, religious, and slave
masters.
Brian Robinson, a native of Charlotte,
holds a master’s
degree in history
from North Carolina
Central University
located in Durham,
NC. Currently, his
research project
focuses on attitudes toward popular
education in the South, 1830-1890.
His general investigative interests
include- Student protest, African
American history, American Hebrews,
History of Ideas, and Southern
Education.
Introducing IAAR’s Research Fellows for
2015-2016
We would like to welcome our new research fellows to the Institute for African
American Research. Dr. Lucy Annang Ingram and Dr. Kellee White were awarded our
faculty fellowships. Elizabeth Wakefield, Kelly Goldberg, and Marissa Yingling were
awarded our graduate student fellowships. Our fellowships encourage the scholary study
and public understanding of race and black life, principally in the United States, the
South, and South Carolina, but also throughtout the African Diaspora and the world.
Faculty
Dr. Lucy Annang Ingram
Department of Health Promotion, Education, & Behavior
Arnold School of Public Health
Examining the Feasibility of Mobile Technology
to Reduce Unintended Pregnancy among Young
Adult African Americans
Racial and ethnic disparities persist in teen pregnancy rates with young
adult African American females having some of the highest rates of
unintended pregnancy (UIP) in South Carolina. The reasons for these
disproportionately high rates are varied and include structural inequalities, limited partner
communication, and inadequate knowledge about the effectiveness of different contraceptive
options. Promoting contraceptive use and providing medically accurate contraceptive
information promises the greatest impact of reducing UIPs among young adult African
Americans; however, traditional, face-to-face educational programs have several challenges
including resource burden, lack of individualized treatment, and limited reach. In contrast,
new media educational interventions have the ability to individualize treatment and reach large
numbers of people easily all the while providing repeated access to information which has been
proven highly effective. In particular, smartphone mobile applications (apps) are a new frontier
of health intervention. The purpose of the proposed project is to conduct formative research to
determine the feasibility and acceptability of a smartphone mobile app to provide culturallytailored, user-driven, theoretically-based, sexual health and contraceptive information to African
American young adults.
Dr. Kellee White
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics
Arnold School of Public Health
Modjeska Monteith Simkins:
At the Intersection of Health Equity and Civil Rights Advocacy
Modjeska Monteith Simkins is commonly referred to as the “matriarch of civil rights activists” in South
Carolina. From 1931-1942, she was the first Director of Negro Work at the South Carolina Tuberculosis Association. This public
health work opened her eyes to the social conditions that black South Carolinians encountered, which had severe health consequences.
In her demands for improving the health conditions of blacks emerged the seeds of a wider critique of the Jim Crow system in South
Carolina. Ms. Simkins’ work exemplifies the inextricable connection between health equity and civil rights advocacy. However, there
is an absence of her contributions in the larger public health literature. Towards this end, the overall goal of this research proposal is
to explore the relationship between public health equity and civil rights advocacy by focusing on the legacy of Modjeska Monteith
Simkins. The specific objectives of the project are to 1) conduct key informant interviews; 2) examine historical and contemporary
primary sources; and 3) prepare and submit a manuscript to the American Journal of Public Health.
Gradute Students
Elizabeth Wakefield
Anthropology Department
College of Arts & Sciences
Yellow Fever: White Bodies, Black Medicine:
The Role of Traditional African Folk He
alers in 18th and 19th Century Charleston
In January 2017 the McKissick Museum will host an exhibit I developed on the role of traditional
African folk healers within the context of antebellum and post-reconstruction society in Charleston, South Carolina. Funding
will be utilized to support the acquisition of exhibit materials to develop three-dimensional displays that narrate the history of
traditional African healers in the eighteenth and nineteenth-century Lowcountry. Although the practice of African folk medicine
in South Carolina during this period played a critical role in preserving African cultural traditions for future generations, this topic
remains understudied. By building on former slave narratives and physician’s records discovered during my Masters research on
yellow fever among African slaves and white Euro-Americans this project will further illuminate this lesser known dimension of
nineteenth-century health care practices in South Carolina. As my thesis work progressed, so did my desire to pursue additional
information regarding the social identity and role played by traditional African healers in Victorian Charleston.
Kelly Goldberg
Anthropology Department
College of Arts & Sciences
Archaeological Explorations of the Dynamics of the Illicit Slave Trade
in 19th Century Guinea
This project investigates the social, economic, and political changes to the West African cultural
landscape brought about through the “illicit” 19th century slave trade. The decentralized sociopolitical organization of the Rio Pongo polities, as well as the existing traditional “landlord/stranger” relationship bonding local elite
leaders with foreign traders through systems of obligation, attracted European and American traders after the “close” of the slave trade
in the early nineteenth century. Through archaeological investigations of a previously identified historical site in the Rio Pongo region
of coastal Guinea, artifacts and cultural remains recovered will provide information for a more comprehensive interpretation of the
circumstances of the slave trade era in Guinea. Building on investigations of the 2013 field season, and drawing from scholarship on
cultural entanglement, group memory, and heritage formation, this research contributes to an understanding of how the advent and
continuation of the illicit slave trade affected local Guinean networks at the social, economic, and political levels.
Marissa Yingling
College of Social Work
An Agency/University Partnership to Examine Racial Disparities in
Access to Medicaid-Funded Treatment for Children with
Autism Spectrum Disorder
While the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is accelerating a strong trend of increased
funding for treatment of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), little is known about racial disparities in
access to treatment among children with ASD. Substantial changes in ASD treatment delivery come in the wake of mounting evidence
that African American children with ASD are less likely to receive a timely diagnosis and quality health care. Given the emphasis
placed on delivering treatment in the earliest years of a child’s life, it is imperative that we gain a more sophisticated understanding of
treatment access. To this end, I propose to examine factors that contribute to disparities in treatment utilization among participants
of South Carolina’s early intensive behavioral intervention program. I will partner directly with the South Carolina Department
of Disabilities and Special Needs to draw upon eight years (2007–2014) of administrative and Medicaid data to form one of most
comprehensive datasets of its kind. By seizing this time-sensitive opportunity, findings will inform interventions at the levels of policy
and practice to reduce disparities in South Carolina and in other states.
IAAR Hosts
Biliniski Fellows
Neal Polhemus, Sueanna Smith, and Charlton Yingling were awarded Russell J. and
Dorothy S. Bilinski Dissertation Fellowships for the 2015-2016 academic school
year. The fellowship gives humanities and social sciences doctoral students support
for their scholarship/research during their dissertation years.
Calendar of Events
“Black Nurses, New Negroes, and the Desegregation of Harlem Hospital, 1919-1935”
September 23, 2015 Dr. Adam Biggs 3:30 p.m.
Room 412 Thomas Cooper Library
“‘Partly Colored’: Asian Americans Between Black and White”
October 14,2015 Dr. Leslie Bow 7:00 p.m.
Room 431 Gambrell Hall
“A Banked Fires Public History and the Challenges and Potential of Interpreting
Reconstruction in Beaufort, South Carolina”
November 4, 2015 Jennifer Taylor 3:30 p.m.
Room 412 Thomas Cooper Library
“Understanding the Healthcare Experiences of Medically Underserved Black Americans”
February 3, 2016 Deeonna Farr 3:30 p.m.
Room 412 Thomas Cooper Library
“Developing a Story-telling HIV Prevention Intervention for
African American Women through Community Engagement”
February 24, 2016 Dr. Alyssa Robillard 3:30 p.m.
Room 412 Thomas Cooper Library
“Colonial Legacy and African Post-Independence Regime Survival”
March 23, 2016 William Akoto 3:30 p.m.
Room 412 Thomas Cooper Library
“‘Breast versus Bottle’: Infant Feeding Preferences Among African American Women”
April 6,2016 Dr. Tisha Felders & Dr. Joy Rivers 3:30 p.m.
Room 412 Thomas Cooper LIbrary
The Mission of the Institute for African American Research
The central mission of the Institute for African American Research (IAAR) is
to encourage the scholarly study and public understanding of race and black
life, principally in the United States, the South, and South Carolina, but also
throughout the African Diaspora and the world. We will pursue our mission
as an interdisciplinary and collaborative center for research focused on people
of African descent in the South and beyond. The IAAR operates under the
guidance of an advisory board with representatives from departments across
the university’s campus.
Visit us on the web and join our ListServ at www.cas.sc.edu/iaar
On Facebook at
www.facebook.com/IAARUSC
Or On Twitter at
www. twitter.com/IAARUSC
Staff
Dr. Daniel Littlefield
Director
[email protected]
Phone: 803-777-4832
Lindsay Arave
Administrative Assistant
[email protected]
Phone: 803-777-4472
Brian Robinson
Graduate Assistant
[email protected]
Phone: 803-777-4835
Andrew Kettler
Graduate Assistant
[email protected]
Phone: 803-777-0594
IAAR Advisory Board
Dr. Daniel Littlefield
Dr. David Crockett
Dr. Todd Shaw
Dr. David Simmons
Dr. Kimberly Simmons
Dr. Terrance Weik
Dr. Qiana Whitted
Dr. Marvin McAllister