August 24, 2001

Solidifying African-American studies

As director, Rafia Zafar, Ph.D., has reshaped and revitalized the program

---

Rafia Zafar, Ph.D., director of African and Afro-American studies and professor of English, both in Arts & Sciences, enjoys writing, research and the interaction with students her position provides.

By Neil Schoenherr

Besides being associate professor of English and director of African and Afro-American studies (AFAS), both in Arts & Sciences, Rafia Zafar, Ph.D., has committed her spare time to taking care of Al Gore.

Al Gore not being the former vice president, but rather the family's pet lizard, a 14-inch Australian bearded dragon.

"We named him Al Gore because my son, who is 9, is very much into presidents," Zafar said. "A lot of people make cracks about him being named Al Gore, but I guess taking care of Al Gore would be one of my hobbies."

But while feeding interesting pets may take up some of her time away from the University, Zafar's commitment here is to students and their education.

"I really love teaching," she said. "I enjoy interacting with students and getting to know them on an academic and personal level."

Zafar earned a doctorate in the history of American civilization from Harvard University and a master's in English and comparative literature from Columbia University. Her undergraduate degree is from City College in New York.

Program growth

"One of the big goals I had when I took over the African and Afro-American studies program here was to add more tenure and tenure-track faculty to the program and to expand the curriculum," Zafar said. "We now have 10 core faculty, in addition to some wonderful part-time faculty. AFAS was also one of the first units to offer a senior capstone seminar to majors. I thought that was wonderful when I learned that AFAS had been a trendsetter. We also have a wide variety of class offerings in African studies and African-American studies."

Zafar's colleagues are taking notice of her efforts to expand the program.

"Rafia Zafar has, with bulldog tenacity, greatly reshaped and revitalized African and Afro-American studies at Washington University," said Gerald L. Early, the Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters in English and AFAS, both in Arts & Sciences. "She deserves a great deal of credit for much of what the program has achieved in the last several years.

"Rafia combines a tough sort of New York skepticism with a genuine sense of commitment to justice and scholarship. We are lucky to have her here."

Rafia Zafar relaxes at home with her husband William Paul, director of film and media studies in Arts& Sciences, and their son, Nathan, 9.

According to Zafar, AFAS is an academic discipline born out of struggle and agitation.

"Afro and African-American studies is important because for many years the impact of African-American people or people of African descent just was not recognized or taught," Zafar said. "In an ideal world, African and African-American topics would be part of the regular history classes. If you took American politics, it would be woven in. If you took U.S. history, you could count on it being woven in. The contributions of women, immigrants and labor would be woven in as well.

"Maybe in the future there won't be African-American studies, there won't be women's studies, but I think that's a long, long way away. People have always been interested in concentrating in specific areas, and I think that will continue."

WU advantages

"We met at University of Michigan," she said. "Although we both had been living in Cambridge, we had to move to Ann Arbor to meet."

Zafar really enjoys having her husband on the same campus.

"It's great --it's a lot of fun to be working together, and we get to see each other during the day sometimes," she said. "The only downside is we talk a lot of shop!"

So far, Zafar said, she enjoys working at the University but is still learning about it.

"Private schools operate very differently from public schools," she said. "One big difference I've noticed is the amount of rules and bureaucracy at a state school. Here, things can be accomplished much more quickly. Working here, you have the advantage of a college but the energy and research capacity of a university. That really encourages faculty in research and writing."

Writing, editing

"I have almost finished part of Volume 6 of the Cambridge History of American Literature," she said. "It's in the editing stage now. My contribution is a narrative of Harlem Renaissance novelists."

Zafar's first book was on African-American writers before 1870 called "We Wear the Mask," named for the Paul Laurence Dunbar poem.

The first book she co-edited was the memoirs of her great-great-grandfather, "God Made Man, Man Made the Slave: The Autobiography of George Teamoh," published in 1992.

"He was a runaway slave and went back to the South after the Civil War and found his wife and one of his children," Zafar said. "He became one of the first elected black officials in Virginia during reconstruction, helping to rewrite the state Constitution, and serving as state senator from Portsmouth."

She also co-edited a collection of essays by Harriet Jacobs, another 19th-century autobiographer and activist.

Zafar's main area of interest is 19th-century American literary history.

"My new book, which might be done by 2003, is a study of food and American literary identity," she said. "I'm interested in how food helps people to construct an image of themselves."

Zafar said she would also like to revisit an essay on Spencer Williams, who was best known as Andy in the hit television series Amos and Andy.

"People know him as this caricature, this stereotype, but one of the fascinating things about Williams is that before Amos and Andy he was an independent black filmmaker, which a lot of people don't know," Zafar said. "The essay I'm writing is about one of the films he produced and directed called 'Blood of Jesus' from 1941, which is a weirdly beautiful, very expressionistic film about the African-American community."

Zafar is also interested in material culture, which she says comes out of her American studies background.

"I'm interested in objects, the physical nature of American identity, how people can be identified and reconstructed by examining gardens, baskets or the way people eat, worship or even build buildings," she said.

Although Zafar gets satisfaction from her research and her role as director of African and Afro-American studies, she is ready to start teaching more courses and interact more with students. This fall she is teaching a course on African-American literature before the Harlem Renaissance.

"I haven't been teaching as much as I'd like because I'm directing the program," she said. "That takes a lot of my time, so I usually only teach one course per semester. I'd like to have more interaction with the undergraduates. If I were teaching more classes I would get the chance to know them better. And I did become an academic because I enjoy teaching."