HMP's Planned speaker for exhibit's Reception at Grand Rapids Community College, Wednesday, September 19, 2007:

Iyunolu Osagie

Osagie is Associate Professor of English at the Pennsylvania State University , where she teaches composition, African and African American literary theories, and Third World women's literatures. Her research focuses on Black diasporic/transnational studies, especially African and African American cultural memories, Third world women's intellectual response to Western feminisms, democracy in South Africa and Nigeria , and the revitalization of the Amistad revolt. Her book, The Amistad Revolt: Memory, Slavery, and the Politics of Identity in the United States and Sierra Leone ( Athens : University of Georgia Press , 2000), highlights the historical Amistad as contemporary cultural memory. She is a member of the University senate and is active in both departmental and college committees. She is also a member of the Executive Board of the Penn State American Women Writers Workshop. She holds a B. A. and M.A. from the University of Ife, Nigeria, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Cornell University.