The book examines how contemporary African American artists, writers, and intellectuals antebellum slavery within post-Civil Rights America in order to challenge the ongoing amnesia of slavery from America’s civic myths and to reimagine a democratic future.
(meta data) TITLE: Salamishah Tillet | Department of English Skip to main content University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences Penn A- Penn Calendar Department of English ## Search form # Salamishah Tillet # Salamishah Tillet © Scheherazade Tillet Salamishah Tillet received her Ph.D. in the History of American Civilization and A.M. in English from Harvard University and her M.A.T. from Brown University. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Pennsylvania where she received her B.A. in English and Afro-American Studies. In 2010-11, she was the recipient of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Fellow for Career Enhancement and served as a visiting fellow at the Center of African American Studies at Princeton University. In 2010, she was awarded the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Award for Distinguished Teaching by an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2013-14, she was a Scholar-in-Residence at Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Her book Sites of Slavery: Citizenship and Racial Democracy in the Post-Civil Rights Imagination (Duke University Press, 2012) examines how contemporary African American artists, writers, and intellectuals remember antebellum slavery within post-Civil Rights America in order to challenge the ongoing exclusion of African Americans from America's civic myths and to model a racially democratic future. In 2010, she co-edited the Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters Special Issue on Ethiopia and her work has appeared in American Literary History, American Quarterly, Callaloo, Novel, Research in African Literatures, Savoring the Salt: The Legacy of Toni Cade Bambara, Violence in the Lives of Black Women: Battered, Black, and Blue, and Women's Review of Books. She is currently working on a book on the civil rights icon Nina Simone. Salamishah has appeared on the BBC, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, TedxWomen, and written blogs and editorials for The Atlantic, The Chicago Tribune, The Guardian, The Nation, The New York Times, The Root, and Time. In 2010, she wrote the liner notes for John Legend and The Roots' three-time Grammy award-winning album, Wake Up!. In 2013, she published Gloria Steinem: The Kindle Singles Interview for Amazon. She is the co-founder of A Long Walk Home, Inc., a non-profit organization that uses art to end violence against girls and women. Her research interests include American Studies, twentieth and twenty-first century African American literature, film, popular music, cultural studies, and feminist theory. ### Interests 20th-Century American LiteratureAfrican American and Ethnic American Literatures African American StudiesGender and Sexuality StudiesComparative Race and Empire Studies ### Publications ### Awards 2010 Kahn Award for Outstanding Teaching by an Assistant Professor ### News & Events Introductory Job Placement Meeting Salamishah Tillet featured on Philly.com for her Beyoncé class Imagining the Raced Space of Freedom: Symposium In Honor of Thadious M. Davis Prof. Salamishah Tillet's article featured in the New York Times Ghosts, Zombies, and the Afterlives of Slavery Salamishah Tillet in NY Times : "Oprah Winfrey on 'The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks'" Salamishah Tillet writes for New York Times: "Finally, a Screenplay by James Baldwin" Professor Salamishah Tillet Writes for The New York Times Professor Salamishah Tillet Featured in the New York Times: "'Miles Ahead' and 'Nina' Try to Hit the Beat on the Offbeat" Professor Salamishah Tillet discusses the impact of Beyonce's "Lemonade" with PBS NewsHour PoemTalk #98 Professor Salamishah Tillet featured in the New York Times: "Race" Professor Salamishah Tillet featured in the New York Times: Spike Lee's "Chi-Raq" Professor Salamishah Tillet featured in the New York Times: The Panthers' Revolutionary Feminism Professor Salamishah Tillet: New York Times article on Nina Simone Professor Salamishah Tillet featured in The Daily Pennsylvanian Professor Salamishah Tillet Featured in The New York Times: To Stop Violence, Start at Home Primary Source ### Doctoral Dissertations Chaired ### 2019 Keyana Parks "The Absurdity of Colorblindness: Post Blackness in Twenty-first Century African American Satire to Real(ly) Absurd: Post Black Paradoxes in African American Satire" ### 2018 Julia Cox "The Protest Song: Bridge Leadership, Sonic Innovation, and the Long Civil Rights Movement" Melanie R. Hill "Personified Preaching: Black Feminist Sermonic Practice in Literature and Music" ### Courses Taught ### spring 2018 Family Feuds: Beyoncé, Jay-Z, and Solange and the Meaning of American Music No Bench by the Road: Monuments, Memory, and the Afterlife of Slavery ### fall 2017 "Where My Girls At?" ### spring 2017 "Where My Girls At?": African American Women Performers in the 20th Century Black Rage: Race, Affect, and the Politics of Feeling ### fall 2016 Introduction to Africana Studies English Honors Program ### spring 2016 What is African-American Literature? Bessie, Beyoncé, and 20th Century Black Women Performers ### fall 2015 Intro to Africana Studies Black Feminist Performnce ### spring 2015 Feminism and Contemporary Black Women Writers Civil Rights Art and Its Afterlife ### fall 2014 Songs of the Underground: Introduction of African American Literature Nina Simone: Myth, Meme, and the Icon of a Movement ### spring 2013 African-American Literature African American Creative Non-Fiction: The Memoir, The Essay, and the Blog ### spring 2012 Jazz: Style and History, Jazz Is a Woman I, Too, Sing America: Introduction to African-American Literature ### fall 2011 20th Century Black Women Writers Changing The Country: Civil Rights Aesthetics and American Memory ### spring 2010 The Black Woman: Post-Civil Rights African-American Women's Literature Songs of the Underground: Music and African-American Literature ### fall 2009 'Samplin' and Signfyin': Survey of African-American Literature Honors Thesis Seminar ### spring 2009 Intro African-American Literature The Making of the Black Atlantic: Representations of Slavery in the African Diaspora ### fall 2008 Race Films: Spike Lee and his Interlocutors Postmodernism and African-American Literature ### spring 2008 Samplin' and Signfyin': Survey of African-American Literature ### fall 2007 20th Century African-American Women Writers and Filmmakers ### fall 2004 Introduction to African-American Literature
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Salamishah Tillet
Books and publications.
In 2012, Tillet published her first book entitled "Sites of Slavery: Citizenship and Racial Democracy in the Post-Civil Rights Imagination" (Duke University Press).