Shamara Alhassan
Shamara Alhassan
Assistant Professor of African American Studies & Religious Studies
Biography
Shamara Wyllie Alhassan is Assistant Professor of African American Studies at the University of California – Los Angeles. Alhassan comes to UCLA from Arizona State University where she was Assistant Professor of Religious Studies in the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies. As a transdisciplinary Africana Studies scholar of religion, philosophy, and gender theory, Alhassan transnational ethnographic work focuses on Black women’s radical epistemologies in Africa and the Caribbean. She is interested in the healing communities Rastafari women form to combat anti-black gendered racism and religious discrimination. Her forthcoming book tentatively titled, Re-Membering the Maternal Goddess: Rastafari Women’s Intellectual History and Activism in the Pan-African World is the winner of the National Women’s Association and University of Illinois Press First Book Prize. She is the co-editor of the book, Black Women and Da Rona: Community, Consciousness, and Ethics of Care, published with the Feminist Wire Series Books at the University of Arizona Press in 2023. Her published work also appears in Callaloo, the National Political Science Review, Religions, The Black Scholar, IDEAZ journal, Political Theology Network, the Immanent Frame, and Caliban’s Readings. She is a Crossroads Arts Fellow with The Crossroads Project Black Religious, Histories, Communities and Cultures at Princeton University. Currently, she serves as the Secretary of Rastafari Thought at the Caribbean Philosophical Association, on the board of the Religion, Medicines, and Healing Unit at the American Academy of Religion, and an organizer of the Collaborative for Research on Black Women and Girls.
Education
- Ph.D. Africana Studies, Brown University, 2019
- A.M., Africana Studies, Brown University, 2017
- M.S.Ed., Childhood Education, City University of New York – Hunter College, 2013
- B.A., Africana Studies and Creative Writing, Sarah Lawrence College, 2008
Publications
- Alhassan, Shamara Wyllie, and Julia Jordan-Zachery co-Edited. Black Women and ‘Rona: Community, Consciousness, and Ethics of Care. Feminist Wire Book Series at the University of Arizona Press. April 2023.
Book Chapters Published
- Alhassan, Shamara Wyllie. “Fugitive Breath, Breathing Bones: Ancestral Guide for Abolishing Anti-Black Gendered COVID-19 Necropolitics.” Published in Black Women and Da’ Rona: Community, Consciousness, and Ethics of Care. Edited by Julia Jordan-Zachary and Shamara Wyllie Alhassan. University of Arizona Press 2023.
Published Refereed Journal Articles
- Alhassan, Shamara Wyllie. “‘This movement is not about the man alone…’: Toward a Rastafari Woman’s Studies.” Ideaz Journal. Issue 15, pages 8-26. Edited by Giulia Bonacci, Michael Barnett, and Erin McLeod. Resource Publications. 2021.
- Alhassan, S.W. “We Stand for Black Livity!”: Trodding the Path of Rastafari in Ghana.” Religions 2020, 11(7), 374; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11070374
- Alhassan, Shamara Wyllie. “Rastafari Women’s Black Girl Magic in the Pan-African World.” Black Girl Magic: Gendered Black Politics in the 21st Century, special issue of the National Political Science Review, edited by Julia Jordan Zachary. vol. 19.2, 2018, pp. 70-74.
Published Digital Scholarship
- Alhassan, Shamara. “Maladaptive Ways of Being: Rastafari Women on Rewriting Scripts of Oppression.”Caliban’s Readings. Aug. 14, 2023.
- Alhassan, Shamara Wyllie. “Critical Race Theory as Key Term in Political Theology.” For the Critical Theory in Political Theology 2.0 Scholarly Blog. Feb. 7, 2023.
- Alhassan, Shamara Wyllie. “Rastafari women’s early-twentieth century world making.” Out There: Perspectives on the Study of Black Metaphysical Religion. SSRC: The Immanent Frame: Secularism, religion, and the public sphere. April 1, 2022.
Published Documentary Film
- Awodie Re-membering The Womb. Dir. Shamara Wyllie Alhassan. Yvontrev Productions, 2009. Documentary Film. (1 hour and 7 minutes).
Published Book Reviews
- Jah Kingdom: Rastafarians, Tanzania, and Pan-Africanism in the Age of Decolonization, by Monique Bedasse. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2017. $90.00 hardcover, $32.95 paperback. 270 pages. The Black Scholar: Journal of Black Studies and Research. Published 2021. 3-pages.
- Alhassan, Shamara Wyllie. “Caribbean Spaces: Escapes from Twilight Zones by Carole Boyce Davies (book review)” Callaloo, vol. 39 no. 4, 2016, pp. 940-942. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/cal.2017.0029. 3-pages.
Awards, Honors, & Fellowships
Awards
- Winner of the National Women’s Studies Association/University of Illinois Press First Book Prize, October 2019
- Award Description: Chosen from a national pool of recent PhD’s and PhD’s up to three years of receiving their terminal degree for the best book manuscript in Women’s Studies, which comes with a book contract with University of Illinois Press.
- Marie J. Langlois Dissertation Prize for an outstanding dissertation in the area of Feminist Studies, May 2019
- Award Description: Only one doctoral candidate is chosen each year from the graduating class for this award from the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women at Brown University
- Crossroads Art Fellow at The Crossroads Project: Black Religious Histories, Communities, and Cultures, which is funded by the Henry Luce Foundation at Princeton University and directed by Judith Weisenfeld, Anthea Butler, and Lerone Martin. (2023-2024)
- Institute of Humanities Research Fellowship at Arizona State University (2021-2022)
- African and African Diaspora Studies Dissertation Fellowship at Boston College (2018-2019)
- Fulbright Fellowship, Accra, Ghana, West Africa, (2008 – 2009)
