Professor
Education:
Ph.D., University of California, Santa Cruz, 1999
Rita Keresztesi’s research and teaching focus on African and African diaspora literary and cultural studies. She was a Fulbright U.S. Scholar at l’Université Ouaga 1 Professeur Ki-Zerbo, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in 2010-2011. She was a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Alumni Ambassador 2016-2020: https://fulbrightscholars.org/alumni-ambassador-appointments
She is the author of Literary Black Power in the Caribbean: Fiction, Music and Film (Routledge 2021/2023); and Strangers at Home: American Ethnic Modernism between the World Wars (Nebraska University Press 2005/2009); and the co-editor (with Ellie Higgins and Dayna Oscherwitz) of The Western in the Global South (Routledge 2015). Her new project is tentatively titled Screen Griots: African Cinema’s Alternative Archives (book-in-progress). Her recent publications (articles and book chapters) focus on West African literature, cinema and music (Boubacar Boris Diop, Manthia Diawara, Jean-Pierre Bekolo, Didier Awadi, Mati Diop, and others).
Contact:
Office: Cate 2, Room 304
Email: ritak@ou.edu
Cell: +1 405/388-7604
Research and Teaching Interests:
African American, Afro-Caribbean, and Black African literary and cultural studies: the Harlem Renaissance, Black Arts/Black Power, Afro-Caribbean literature, and postcolonial African cinema and music.
Bookshelf:
Literary Black Power in the Caribbean (Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2021 and 2023 pb)
The Western in the Global South (co-editor) (Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2015)
Strangers at Home: American Ethnic Modernism between the World Wars (Nebraska UP, 2005 and 2009 pb)
