Dr. Tanure Ojaide, The Debt-Collector and Other Stories (Africa World Press, 2009). Consisting of ten stories set in the social matrix of contemporary Nigeria, the collection portrays both the fragility of humanity before fate and the resilience of human subjects in dogged pursuit of their humanity despite the urgent drive of post-colonial condition towards social expediency. Throughout the book, we see the tension, even the frustrations, in the exile’s imaginaries to make sense of the transformations that have besieged his society. Each story represents the quest to understand how and why the familiar becomes unfamiliar, “the unthinkable can happen, the imagined could be real, and the real could be fantastic”.  This is the second collection of short stories by the versatile writer-essayist.  Advance praises describe the collection as one that establishes Ojaide’s “place in the rank of the best practitioners of the genre.”

Dr. Charles Hutchison (Associate Professor of the Department of Middle, Secondary & K-12 Education  and Afffiliate Africana Studies faculty) released What Happens When Students Are in the Minority: Experiences and Behaviors that Impact Human Performance, ed. (Rowman and Littlefield 2009). 

Dr. Greg Wiggan (Assistant Professor of Urban Education and Affiliate Africana Studies faculty) and Dr. Charles Hutchison have published Global Issues In Education: Pedagogy, Policy, Practice, and Minority Experience (Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2009).

Dr. Thomas Rogers, has received the Fulbright Fellowship and the American Philosophical Society’s Franklin Research Grant for his new research project: Hunger and Environmental Destruction in Brazil’s Forgotten Ethanol Boom, 1971-1990. The study will examine the growth of Brazil’s sugar cane ethanol industry over a twenty-year period, and its relationship to workers’ decreasing stability and deteriorating work conditions and degradation of the environment. For more information, see the Independent Tribune coverage of his Fulbright Award: http://www2.independenttribune.com/content/2009/apr/08/uncc-professor-wins-fulbright-scholarship/news-local/

Dr. Thomas Rogers' essay “Geneticistas da gramínea doce em campos decadentes: Variedades de cana-de-açúcar, agrônomos e plantadores na abordagem da modernização agrícola (1930-1964)” has been published in Clio 26, no. 2 (2009): 161-188

 Dr. Akin Ogundiran, "Frontier Migrations and Cultural Transformations in Yoruba Hinterland, ca. 1575–1700: The Case of Upper Osun", in Toyin Falola and Aribidesi Usman, eds, Movements, Border and Identities Formation in Africa. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press (2009), pp. 37-52.

Dr. Tanure Ojaide's book Waiting for the Hatching of a Cockerel, has been pubished by Africa World Press, Inc. (2008).  The book is comprised of 36-section poems. 

Dr. Dorothy S. Ruiz's article "African American Grandmothers Providing Extensive Care to Their Grandchildren:  Socio-demographic and Health Determinants of Life Satisfaction," has just been published in the Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare 2008, Vol 35(4), pp. 29-52.  

Dr. Robert Smith and Dr. Debra C. Smith's chapter titled "The Wire:  Media Placement and Postindustrial Landscapes," has been published in Africana Cultures and Policy Studies:  Scholarship and Transformation of Public Policy, Ed. Zachery Williams. New York:   Palgrave-McMillan , 2009.

Dr. Debra C. Smith, The Words Unspoken: The Hidden Power of Language (Durham Carolina Academic Press, 2008). The book engages the cultural politics of language and the language of power in a racialized society from wide ranging theoretical and analytical perspectives. Dr. Smith argues that popular culture, especially rap music, is de-centering the language of power, exemplified by the King’s English. She grounds her analysis in the verbal communication of television and the language of hip hop culture to demonstrate how formal language is now rivaled by other usages of language as a means of constructing authority and power in public discourses. Emphasizing the cultural capital of language in education, Debra concludes with an assessment of the possibilities and transformative power of hip-hop language in curriculum and pedagogy.

 Dr. Debra C. Smith's article "Critiquing Reality Based Black Televisual Fatherhood:  A Critical Analysis of Run's House and Snoop Dogg's Father Hood," was published in Critical Studies in Media Communication, 25, 4(2008):  pp. 393-412.

Dr. Veronica Nmoma’s essay titled “Son of the Soil: Reclaiming the Land in Zimbabwe’ is the lead article in the latest issue of Journal of Asian and African Studies 43,4(2008): 371-397. The essay examines the historical and political roots of land redistribution debacle in Zimbabwe. Dr. Nmoma’s analysis helps us understand some of the far-reaching and immediate challenges facing postcolonial states in Africa, and offers pragmatic solutions that have broad implications for the southern African region.  Dr. Nmoma is an associate professor in Africana Studies Department.

Dr. Veronica Nmoma's essay titled “Power and Force: Libya’s Relations with the United States,” has been published in the Journal of Third World Studies 26, 2 (2009): 137-159. Dr. Nmoma raises the stakes in this article by contending that “intrinsic to the relations between the United States and Libya…is the competition for power”, that centered on regional and continental influence for Libya, and on global domination for the US. She argues that the US mismanaged the struggle by resorting to the use of violence that sought to eliminate the Libyan leader, Muhammad Qaddafi.