I am Dr. Aisha A. Upton Azzam(she/her) and I am an Assistant Professor in the Sociology and Anthropology Department at Susquehanna University. I attained my Ph.D. in Sociology from The University of Minnesota.
As a sociologist, my research interests are race, gender, social movements, civic engagement, and Black feminism. A large part of my research agenda is examining the engagement of Black people, specifically Black women, within civil society. Currently, My research has three focuses:
- My research involves Black women’s organizations and social movements. My current book project examines Black sororities’ interactions with radical Black movements of the 1970s. It is a comparative historical project in which I look at two similar sororities, Alpha Kappa Alpha and Delta Sigma Theta, and examine why their engagement with social movements diverged with the emergence of post-civil rights Black radical movements. In addition to her book project, I also study other Black women’s organizations like the National Council of Negro Women.
- My research includes work on Black feminism and Black women, broadly. I focus on topics like Black feminism’s relationship to speculative fiction (the Black feminist imagination) and the deployment of critical memory in response to the public memory of Black women like Harriet Tubman.
- Lastly, my research includes work on the Anti-lynching movement and the invaluable work of Ida B. Wells. In this vein, she also delves into congressional debates surrounding anti-lynching bills in the early 20th century.
Aisha A. Upton 