Education
B.F.A., University of the Arts
M.A., Temple University
Ph.D., Temple University
Postdoctoral Fellowship, Center for African American Studies (CAAS), College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (CLASS), University of Houston
Bio
REILAND RABAKA is an associate professor of Africana Studies in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder , where he is also an affiliate professor in the Department of Women and Gender Studies and a research fellow at the Center for Studies of Ethnicity and Race in America (CSERA). Included among his regular teaching topics are: Black Abolitionism; the Black Women's Club Movement; the New Negro Movement; the Harlem Renaissance; Pan-Africanism; Negritude; Black Nationalism; Black Marxism; the Civil Rights Movement; the Black Power Movement; the Black Women's Liberation Movement; Black Liberation Theology; Du Bois Studies; Fanon Studies; Critical Race Theory; Critical White Studies; Hip Hop Studies; and, Intersectional Critical Social Theory (Race, Gender, Class, and Sexuality Studies). His ongoing research interests include: history, philosophy, and methodology of the human sciences; Africana intellectual and cultural history; history of race; politics of race; sociology of race; psychology of race; anthropology of race; philosophy of race; critical race theory; critical white studies; feminist theory; sociology of gender; postcolonial studies; radical politics; critical social theory; critical pedagogy; sociology of education; sociology of religion; and, liberation theology . His research has been published in Journal of African American Studies , Journal of Black Studies , Western Journal of Black Studies , Africana Studies Annual Review , Africalogical Perspectives , Handbook of Black Studies , Ethnic Studies Review , Jouvert: A Journal of Postcolonial Studies , and Journal of Southern Religion , among others.
At the present, Professor Rabaka's research program has three principle foci. The first focus falls under the rubric of what is currently called Du Bois and Fanon studies, respectively. In particular, his interests in these areas lie in examining W.E.B. Du Bois and Frantz Fanon's insurgent intellectual and radical political legacies for their contributions to: 1) Human Sciences; 2) Africana Studies; 3) American Studies; 4) Racial and Ethnic Studies; 5) Cultural Studies; 6) Decolonization and Postcolonial Studies; 7) Critical Race Studies and Critical White Studies; 8) Gender and Women's Studies; 9) Sociology of Education and Critical Pedagogy; and, 10) Sociology of Religion and Liberation Theology. His second research focus revolves around the study of black radical intellectual history, black radical politics, and black radical social movements, specifically the ways in which black radical intellectuals and activists have critiqued and combated both European racial colonialism and white conservatism, as well as the black bourgeoisie and (neo)colonized African and African American capitalist elites. The final focus of his research is geared toward broadening the base of critical social theory, making it more multicultural, transethnic, transgendered, sexuality-sensitive, epistemically open, and mixed-methodologically with respect to non-European/non-white thought and practices by placing it into deep discursive dialogue with theory and phenomena it has heretofore woefully neglected. As a result of the wide-range and extended reach of his interdisciplinary epistemological preoccupations and research program, Professor Rabaka has written five books: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Problems of the Twenty-First Century (2007); Du Bois's Dialectics: Black Radical Politics and the Reconstruction of Critical Social Theory (2008); Africana Critical Theory: Reconstructing the Black Radical Tradition, from W.E.B. Du Bois and C.L.R. James to Frantz Fanon and Amilcar Cabral (2009); Forms of Fanonism: Frantz Fanon's Critical Theory and the Dialectics of Decolonization (2010); and, Against Epistemic Apartheid: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Disciplinary Decadence of Sociology ( forthcoming ). He is, in addition, the editor of W.E.B. Du Bois: A Critical Reader (2010), which is the first volume of critical commentary exclusively devoted to scholarship on Du Bois's pioneering contributions to the discourse and development of sociology. Also, he is the co-editor (along with Arturo Aldama, Elisa Facio, and Daryl Maeda) of Enduring Legacies: Ethnic Histories and Cultures of Colorado ( forthcoming ), which is the first anthology of critical commentary exclusively devoted to the discourse and development of race, gender, and class studies in Colorado and the wider American West. His research has been recognized with several awards, including the W.E.B. Du Bois-Anna Julia Cooper Award and the Cheikh Anta Diop Award. He has collected data, conducted archival research, and lectured extensively both nationally and internationally, and has been the recipient of numerous community service citations, teaching awards, and research fellowships.
Dr. Rabaka, who received his B.F.A. in philosophy of art and performing arts from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , is also an aesthetician, musician, and poet. His poetry has been published in Talking Drum, Uhuru! , Harambee Notes , Imhotep , Stilt-Walkers, Ujima , and the Voice , among others. He is a jazz drummer and percussionist, and has recorded three compact discs of his spoken-word/poetry with the be-bop to hip hop experimental music ensemble, Collective Consciousness. Deeply influenced by the writings of Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, Sonia Sanchez, Amiri Baraka, Wole Soyinka, Toni Morrison, Chinua Achebe, Alice Walker, August Wilson, Ngugi and Ayi Kwei Armah, among many others, Professor Rabaka has maintained a long-standing love affair with black literature and the literati of Africa and its diaspora. His ongoing teaching and research interests in the arts, specifically the social and political implications of African, African American and Caribbean aesthetics, include: Harlem Renaissance Studies; Jazz Studies; Negritude Studies; the Black Arts Movement; the Black Aesthetic; reggae music and the Rastafari movement; African folk music; Kora; Juju; Highlife; Chimurenga; Makossa; Mbalax; Morna; Afro-Beat; Afro-Brazilian Studies; Afro-Peruvian Studies; Afro-Cuban Studies; Afro-Caribbean Studies; Hip Hop Studies; Africana Cinema Studies; and, the utilization of popular culture as a critical pedagogical tool.
Office
Ketchum 10A
Contact
E: reiland.rabaka@colorado.edu
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