Zeba Shahbaaz
Associate Professor
Department of Languages, Literature and Philosophy
310-B Elliot
615-963-2569
zshahbaaz@tnstate.edu
Education
Ph.D., Indiana University, Bloomington
M.A., North Carolina A&T State University
B.A., Florida State University
Bio
Dr. Shahbaaz is a teaching and research scholar in the fields of English literature and Africana Studies. Through a blend of critical engagement and creative activities, Dr. Shahbaaz enthusiastically invites her students to explore the intricacies of Black life and culture, as the focal point of her teaching. Dr. Shahbaaz's research interests span a wide range of topics, encompassing African American and African diasporic literature and history, Literary Theory, Africana Studies, Caribbean Literature, Self-care and Identity, Black Feminist Thought, and Black Popular Culture and Music Studies. Moreover, Dr. Shahbaaz is committed to equipping her students with essential professional skills, including technical and transferrable writing abilities, critical thinking prowess, and creative projects for future career application.
Publications
“A Face-off with Self: Examining Black Exceptionalism and Cultural Rootedness in Teju Cole’s Open City and Colson Whitehead’s Apex Hides the Hurt” South Atlantic Review. Vol. 89. No. 4, Winter 2024. pp. 35-55
“Bag Lady: Unpacking Black Women’s Experiences in African American Literature and Black Popular Music using bell hooks’ Healing Practice and Teaching Praxis.” College English. Vol 85. No. 3. 2023. pp. 243-259.
“Conjuring Roots in Dystopia: Reconciling Transgenerational Conflict and Dislocation in Nalo Hopkinson’s Brown Girl in the Ring and Edwidge Danticat’s Brother, I’m Dying.” Mobility, Spatiality, and Resistance in Literary and Political Discourse, edited by Christian Beck, 1st ed., Springer Nature, 2021, pp. 73–90.
Selected Conference Presentations
"Exploring Neurospeculative Afrofeminism in Virtual Reality." Howard University's Composition, Rhetoric & Research Second Annual Virtual Conference. Virtual. April 1st, 2025.
"They Not Like Us:" The Conflict of Racial Essentialism and Multiethnicity in Kendrick Lamar and Drake's 2024 Rap Beef." Northeast Popular Culture Association's 2024 Conference. Hybrid. October 3rd-October 5th, 2024.
“The Power of Testimony: A Call for Help, Justice, and Freedom in Black Autobiographical Writing.” 14th annual Conference, African, African American & Diaspora Studies (AAAD). 2024.
“Coming to America: Addressing Stereotypes and the Hype within the African Diaspora.” 9th Annual Africa Conference. Tennessee State University. Nashville, Tennessee. 2023.
“(Re)Imagining Black Women’s Self-Care in Virtual Reality.” Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies’ Herman C. Hudson Symposium: Speculative Blackness: Imagining Black Future(s). Bloomington, Indiana. March 30th, 2019.
“Living on the Outside: The Complexity of Preserving the Black Self in ‘White’ America.”42nd annual National Council for Black Studies (NCBS) Conference. Atlanta, Georgia, March 15th-17th, 2018.
“Graduate Student Leadership and Research in Black Studies PhD Programs.” 102nd annual meeting and conference for the Association for the Study of African American Life & History (ASALH), September 28th, 2017.
"Retrieving African American His-story in Literature: Didacticism and Ancestry in Ernest J. Gaines' A Lesson Before Dying and August Wilson's The Piano Lesson." The Telluride Association Sophomore Seminar. Bloomington, Indiana. July 12th, 2016.
"Connoting 'Darkness:' Colonialism and the Dominance of Language in Chinua Achebe's Man of the People, "English and the African Writer," and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness." 42nd Annual Conference for the African Literature Association (ALA): Justice and Human Dignity in Africa and the African Diaspora. Atlanta, Georgia. April 6-9th, 2016.
"HBCU's and Writing Centers: Talking about the Work We (Should) Do" Workshop. Composition and Rhetoric Conference at North Carolina A&T State University. Greensboro, North Carolina. April 4, 2014.
“We or Me: Rejecting Racial Essentialism for Authenticity with the ‘Act’ of Passing in James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man, and Nella Larsen’s Quicksand and Passing.” Identity and Culture: Engaging Interdisciplinary Conversations Conference at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Greensboro, North Carolina. March 1, 2014.
“Teaching the Othello Complex: Student Writers Rewrite and Address the Postcolonial Narrative of “Othered,” “Subaltern,” & “Marginalized” Global Entities.” 85th Southern Atlantic Modern Language Association Conference. Atlanta, Georgia. November 8-10, 2013.
Classes Taught TSU
ENGL 1010: Freshman English I
ENGL 1020: Freshman English II
ENGL 2013: Black Arts and Literature
ENGL 2023: Black Lit Short Story and Novel
ENGL 3010: Critical Approaches
ENGL 4010: Special Topics, Afrofuturism and Black Futures
Select University/Department Committees
Faculty Senate Professional Development Committee
English Major Assessment Committee
Career Preparedness Committee
Online Program Committee
College of Liberal Arts Africana Studies Committee
Technology Committee
English MA Program Committee