Postdoctoral Fellow
Badji, Baba
- Courses Taught: 01:420:281 - Exile in Global French and Francophone Cultures: Senegal & Algeria
- Presidential Postdoctoral Associate in The Department of French and Department of English (New Brunswick, NJ)
- Email: baba.badji@rutgers.edu
- Office Location: AB-4180
Education
B.A, The College of Wooster, Ohio
M.F.A., Poetry and Translation, Columbia University
Ph.D., Washington University in St. Louis, MO
Translation Studies Certificate
Chancellor’s Fellow and an Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor Society Fellow
Inaugural Postdoctoral Associate with The Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice (ISGRJ) and Comparative Literature at Rutgers University in New Brunswick (Cohort I-2021-2022)
Inaugural James Baldwin Artist and Scholar in Residence at The University of Virginia, in The Department of French (Cohort I-2022)
Fields of Research:
Poetry, Poetics, Négritude Translation within Francophone and Anglophone Cultures, Postcolonial Literature and Theory, Black France, Literary criticism; Slavery Afterlives, Translating Blackness
Interdisciplinary Publications:
Scholarly manuscript in progress : Négritude Polemics: Transnational Black Poetic Imagination in the African Diaspora, it refigures the Négritude movement as an unfinished project in the context of a globalized Blackness. It meditates with Négritude as more than poetics thoughts and philosophies, but rather, as an epistemology that formulates Blackness in ways that continue to be relevant for the enduring Black struggles. Dr. Badji’s time will be focused on polishing up the scholarly manuscript and securing its publication
Scholarly chapter forthcoming for special issue on “Gender and Solidarity in African Literature,” with the Journal of Postcolonial Writing
Ghost letters Volume II in progress and sample work forthcoming with Yale French Studies
Madame Diawara a novel in progress: read a chapter here https://www.journaloftheplagueyears.ink/blog/madame-diawara?categoryId=363860
https://pen.org/meet-the-2023-literary-awards-judges/
Scholarly publication: “Jesus Died to Guide the Prophet in the Moon’s Blue Chunk: After Mahershala Ali by Baba Badji QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking Michigan State University Press Volume 9, Number 1, Spring 2022 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/862877
Ghost Letters, 2021: full-length poetry manuscript
https://www.europenowjournal.org/2018/02/28/four-poems-by-leopold-sedar-senghor/
https://www.europenowjournal.org/2018/02/28/five-poems-by-mohammed-kair-eddine/
Teaching at Rutgers:
In the Spring of 2024, Dr. Badji will teach Francophone Cultures: Images and Texts in Sénégal & Algeria with the Department of French. In the Fall of 2024, Dr. Badji will teach Intro to Creative Writing: The Craft of Poetry: Creative Mind and Poetic of Space with the Department of English, Rutgers in New Brunswick.
Spring 2023: Literature Across Borders: Translation in the Program of Comparative Literature
Spring 2022: Global Black Poetry in the Program of Comparative Literature
Teaching Statement:
On the broader interpersonal level, in my teacher-student interactions which I enjoy a great deal—because the curiosity of my students—I try to embody the same values that are a part of any good relationship: trust, communication, compassion, and care. Over the years, I have found that what motivates me the most as a teacher is the learning process of the relevance of cultures that a comparative thinking cultivates. Over the years, I have found overseeing students throughout their intellectual curiosity and progress has been the most rewarding features of my own academic development. I make sure to emphasize the importance of humility, determination, tolerance, and the pleasure of learning habits that help them become passionate free thinkers. As a writer, translator, and teacher, I strongly believe in the growth of my students creatively and critically. I want my students to find meaning and a voice in their writing projects critically and creatively. Voicing one’s meaning is another form of communication that must be emptied out of the inner-self. The author must give herself or himself away on the otherwise empty page. With a community in practice and patience, that voice and meaning eventually emerge.
Services, Mentoring, and intellectual projects at Rutgers:
As part of ongoing mentoring and teaching activities, Dr. Badji is an Executive Committee Member and Faculty Mentor for the Rutgers Global Justice Fellows Initiative (an ongoing collaboration with The Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice—ISGRJ—and the Office of Study Abroad) Rutgers, in New Brunswick.
Dr. Badji is the Cofounder and Project Manager for The Dakar Translation Symposium that is a 5-days international, interdisciplinary, multilingual scholarly meeting centered on the African diaspora-(https://globalracialjustice.rutgers.edu/event/dakar-translation-symposium-africa-and-her-diasporas). The second edition of the Dakar Translation Symposium is scheduled for Jun.3-9, 2024, and it will be held in Ghana.
Dr. Badji is also the Cofounder of the Center for Translation Studies and Cultures at Assane Seck University in Ziguinchor, Casamance, Senegal. Dr. Badji’s translations, essays, poems, and various scholarly articles are forthcoming elsewhere.
