Education
Ph.D African Languages and Literature, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2013
M.A. African Languages and Literature, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1997
B.A. English, Goshen College, 1994
Biography
Sofia Samatar joined the English faculty at CSUCI in 2013. She holds a Ph.D. in African Languages and Literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she specialized in modern Arabic literature.
Dr. Samatar is the author of A Stranger in Olondria, a fantasy novel exploring themes of travel, exile, and the conflict between oral and written ways of knowing. She is nonfiction and poetry editor for the online journal Interfictions. She's interested in world literature, African literature, fantasy and science fiction, feminism, and all strange and subversive forms of writing.
Before going back to school for a doctoral degree, Dr. Samatar lived in South Sudan and Egypt for twelve years, where she became proficient in Arabic. In addition to teaching literature and writing, she's offering CSUCI's first Arabic class.
Representative Courses Taught
- ENGL 110 Multicultural Literature
- ENGL 250 Themes in World Literature
- ENGL 325 Major Non-Western Authors
Scholarship
Keywords
African literature, Arabic, fantasy and science fiction