uxuf

uxuf@arizona.edu

Phone

(520) 621-0693

Office

Learning Services Building

Office Hours

Please email professor to schedule a meeting or refer to class syllabus.

Abana, Yuxuf A

Lecturer

Yuxuf Abana, a published poet, writer, musician, and soccer player was born in Ghana, West Africa where he earned a triple major Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature, Philosophy, and History. He later moved to Iowa State University, and the University of Arizona, where he graduated with a MA in English, and a Ph. D in 19th Century British Romanticism & Its Implication In The Africana Experience. He is also a graduate of the School of Theory & Criticism at Cornell University.

Dr. Abana teaches a range of AFAS courses that emphasize his scholarly interests. These are literature courses such as AFAS 342: Writers, Women, & the Gods, AFAS 160D1: Introduction to African American Literature, AFAS 306: African American Women's Autobiography--History & Literature, AFAS 320: The African American Slave Narrative: History & Literature.

The other courses regularly taught by Dr. Abana are AFAS 376: Global Soccer, AFAS 200: The Africana Experience, and AFAS 304B: The Social Construction of Race: Blackness.

Dr. Abana's research interests are Teaching College Writing, Theories of Slave Writing, Race & Literary Theory, Jazz, Blues and the Africana Experience, The Africana Novel and the Western World, and is currently developing a manuscript on the concept of realism in reading Africana literature.

Dr. Abana, in addition to his academic commitments, serves on the Board of the Dancing In The Streets Dance Company (a performance company for underprivileged and handicapped kids), and serves as a cook, once a month, for the Primavera Men's Homeless Shelter in South Tucson.

Currently Teaching

AFAS 342 – Writers, Women and the Gods

In order to conceptualize the way gender and ethnicity has shaped women's lives in the public and private domain students will "hear" the voices of African American women in ethnography, history and literature as we discuss the Africana concepts of life, health, beauty and family. The experiences of these women, as expressed in literature have become "formidable" presences in African American culture and history. The self-expression and self-definition, expressed by African American women's voices have generated social and political changes in American history that have also impacted the dominant Euro-American culture of American society.

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AFAS 376 – Global Soccer

While the British invented "football" (as soccer is known around the world), the French were key players in structuring it worldwide. This interdisciplinary course is about the emergence and growing notoriety of soccer in France, the French - speaking world, and as a worldwide global phenomenon through explorations in the following areas: cultural and global studies, philosophy, history, institutions, anthropology, sociology, and language. The course presents several important themes that allow to understand the popularity and identification of the populations with soccer worldwide, as well as the human values it represents: olympism, pacifism, imperialism, colonialism and post - colonialism , national identities, race, politics, gender, and globalization.

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AFAS 306 – African-American Autobiographies: Women and Their Histories

Students will gain insight into the historical and cultural factors that have created, and continue to perpetuate gender and ethnic inequity. Students will come to understand African American writers, particularly women, as historical agents and self-defined individuals. While the course will emphasize the multiple roles of African American women, as portrayed autobiographically it also incorporates the historical struggles of those around them. It is my goal that through the course material students will see how African Americans are constantly recreating themselves in the face of adversity.

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