Alma Jean Billingslea, Ph.D.
Biography
Alma Jean Billingslea, Ph.D., activist, writer, and academic, has been a faculty member at Spelman College since 1989 and is currently professor emerita of English. She is also a founding faculty member and former director of the African Diaspora and the World program. Her professional interests include African American and African Diaspora studies with emphasis on comparative Africana literatures, African American folklore, border theory and civil rights biography. With travel and faculty exchanges in the Caribbean, South America and Africa, Professor Billingslea has taught at the University of La Salle in Bogota, Colombia, conducted research at the Institute for African Studies at the University of Ghana at Legon and has been the recipient of Fulbright and Ford Foundation Fellowships.
A recipient of the Asante Award for Outstanding Research from the University of Georgia’s African Studies Institute, she was also selected as the inaugural recipient of the HBCU faculty award by the Institute for Shipboard Education for Semester at Sea. More recently, her work as editor of "Soul Force, the Official Journal of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference," has been included in the collections at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Professor Billingslea has published articles in national and international journals as well as a book-length study of black women writers and visual artists entitled, "Crossing Borders through Folklore: African American Women’s Fiction and Art." A veteran of the Southern civil rights movement, Professor Billingslea’s current research is focused on the field staff members who worked with Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Professor Billingslea received the A.B. degree from Rutgers University, the M.A. from Atlanta University and the Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Dallas.
Research Interests
Comparative Africana Literatures, 20th Century African and African American women writers, African Diaspora Studies, Civil Rights Biography
Select Publications
Book
Crossing Borders through Folklore: African American Women’s Fiction and Art. University of Missouri Press, 1999.
Articles, Fiction and Book Chapters
“New Dimensions of Diaspora: Modernity, Heritage Tourism, and the ‘Black Star of Africa’.” Africa and Its Historical and Contemporary Diasporas. Lexington 2023.
“Selma: the Bridge and Beyond.” The Shadow of Selma. University Press of Florida. 2018.
“Toni Morrison’s Performance of the Word in Song of Solomon: The Folkloric, The Fantastic and ‘Some Old Folk’s Lie.’” Toni Morrison: Memory and Meaning. The University Press of Mississippi, 2014.
“New Codes of Honor and Human Values in Bessie Head’s When Rain Clouds Gather.” South Atlantic Review 75.2 (2010): 85-93.
“Problematizing Home: Cottage and Courtyard, Roads and Highways in Ama Ata Aidoo’s Anowa.” Cyber Literature: A Bi-Annual Journal of English Studies. 19-20. 1-2 (2007): 19-23.
“Moonshot.” Short Stories of the Civil Rights Movement. U Georgia P. 1997