Expertise

African American literature; Black Arts Movement; Afrofuturism; Black Popular Culture; Hip Hop Studies; Digital Humanities; Africana Digital Humanities; Black Women Writers

Biography

Casarae Abdul-Ghani is a New Jersey resident with roots in the San Francisco Bay Area. She received her BA in English from Johnson C. Smith University and her Masters and PhD also in English from Purdue University. Her book Start A Riot! Civil Unrest in Black Arts Movement Drama, Fiction, and Poetry (UP Mississippi 2022) examines riot-iconography in the fictive works of Amiri Baraka, Ben Caldwell, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sonia Sanchez, and Henry Dumas. Other works by Abdul-Ghani can be found in peer-reviewed journals Black Camera: An International Film Journal, Midwest Quarterly, and Modern Language Studies.  Abdul-Ghani’s other interests include the Digital Humanities where she completed a faculty fellowship with the Lender Center for Social Justice exploring viral social media hashtags and its impact on restorative justice initiatives. Her teaching responsibilities and research interests at Temple University include African American Literature and Cultural Studies with a particular focus on the Black Arts Movement, Black Women Writers, and popular culture.

Curriculum Vitae | Website

Selected Publications

• African American Literature in Transition 1970-1980, co-edited with Marlo D. David (under review, Cambridge UP)
• BAM! Chicago and the Black Arts Movement, co-edited with Thabiti Lewis and Pavithra Narayanan (under contract, Northwestern University). 
• Start A Riot: Civil Unrest in Black Arts Movement Drama, Fiction, and Poetry (UP of Mississippi 2022). 
• Abdul-Ghani, Casarae Lavada, “The Politics of Revolt in Ann Petry’s In Darkness and Confusion.” “Language of the Unheard”: Riot in American Literature and Culture, edited by Susan Gilmore, Lexington Books (Forthcoming).
• Gibson, Casarae L. “Black Lives Matter in Henry Dumas’ “Riot or Revolt?” Modern Language Studies, vol. 48, no. 2, 2019, pp.38-54. Special Issue: “Riot on the American Cultural Stage.”
• Gibson, Casarae L. “Social Media in Teaching Contemporary African American Protest Literature.” The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought, vol. 59, no.4, 2018, pp.386-409.
• Gibson, Casarae L. “Fight the Power:” Hip Hop and Civil Unrest in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing.” Black Camera: An International Film Journal, vol. 8, no. 2, 2017, pp. 183-207. Close-Up: “Hip Hop Cinema.”
• Gibson, Casarae and Venetria K. Patton. “Teaching Anna Deavere Smith’s Twilight through a Critical Race Theory Lens.” The National Journal of Urban Education and Practice 6.1 (2012): 69-83. Print.
• “John Edgar Wideman,” “Henry Dumas,” “Dorothy Height,” “Russell Simmons,” "Anna Deavere Smith,” and “Aaliyah” for Great Lives from History: African Americans, edited by Carl L. Bankston III for Salem Press, 2011.

Courses Taught

Temple University 

Undergraduate 

• CLA First Year Experience 
• Representing Race
• Interpreting Literature 
• Harlem Renaissance 
• African American Literature (1740-1920)
• Studies in African American Literary Genre 

Graduate 

• Black Women Writers 
• 20th and 21st Century American Literature

Syracuse​ University 

• Introduction to African American Studies 
• African American Literature 20th and 21st Centuries 
• Protest Movements in African American Art and Literature 
• African American Popular Culture 
• Harlem Renaissance: Literature and Ideology 
• Art, Cultures, and Literature of the Pan-African World (Graduate Course)