Fatoumata Seck

Bio

Fatoumata Seck is a literary scholar with an interdisciplinary background. She specializes in francophone African and Caribbean studies with an emphasis on cultural and diaspora studies, postcolonial theory and political economy. Her research brings together literary criticism, anthropological theory and various approaches to materialism to investigate the impact of economic thought and economic processes on Senegalese works of fiction. Her book manuscript Material Imaginaries: Fiction, Economy and the Postcolony develops methodologies for studying the influence of post-colonial neoliberal reforms on the Senegalese social fabric through the examination of both cultural production and cultural practice. It establishes how Senegalese writers, filmmakers, and artists have engaged in humanistic ways of rethinking economic ideologies and practices through fictional narratives as well as way in which these works inform notions of value, debt, money, and capital.
Seck is a former Assistant Professor at the City University of New York, College of Staten Island (CUNY/CSI) where she has taught and conducted research on literature, film, and cultures of the francophone world and the African diaspora and served as coordinator for the French program. Seck holds a Ph.D. in French with a minor in anthropology and a certificate in African Studies from Stanford University as well as degrees from the University of Georgia and Université Jean Moulin Lyon III. Seck is a native Wolof and French speaker; her teaching cuts across various geographical areas and linguistic traditions (Wolof, French, English, Spanish and Portuguese) and is informed by critical theory on race, gender and ethnicity. In addition to courses about francophone cultures and societies offered at the Division of Literature Cultures and Languages (DLCL), Seck offers courses about the African diaspora in Europe and the Americas at the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (CSRE). She is also a Center for African Studies (CAS) affiliate faculty member with projects and courses that engage the landscape of African humanities. Her work has been featured in different venues such as The Journal of African Cultural Studies, The Journal of Haitian Studies, Études Littéraires Africaines and Le Monde Afrique.

Academic Appointments

• Assistant Professor, French and Italian

Professional Education

• Ph.D., Stanford University (2016)
• M.A., University of Georgia (2011)
• M.A., Université Jean Moulin Lyon III (2009)