Chamara Jewel Kwakye

Biography

Dr. Chamara (Sh’Mar’Rah) Jewel Kwakye (Kwaa’Chee) is a writer, artist, performer, and an Assistant Professor in the department of African American & African Studies at Michigan State University. She was born and raised in Los Angeles, California and considers herself to be a blessed child of the Black Diaspora (Patrilineage from Ghana, West Africa and Matrilineage from Arkansas).  She loves hard (chalk that up to her Scorpio stellium), loves all things Women’s basketball (NCAA, WNBA, and Unrivaled) but don’t ask her to play, and you will know if she loves you if/when she ever cooks for you. Her family (blood and chosen) are her pride and joy and she would ride at dawn for her loved ones. If you catch her randomly smiling or laughing while looking at her phone its probably because her babies (wife, mom, God children, nieces, nephews, Chirren) or friends sent her something funny or sweet or she got a message from any of the following group chats: Notorious KHM; Head of Household, Ladies Night, KTR, Four Court Press; Lefts & Rights; The Cousins. If you see her in the wild, approach cautiously, as she lives in her head and can be skittish unless she’s next to a body of water (Alafia Yemaya).

Artistry

Kwakye’s art is fascinated with the constant making of the Black diaspora thus no matter the medium, her work centers Black peoples creative and often subversive zeal for liberation and freedom specifically, Black women, Black girls, Black queer people. Her work can be found in, Palimpsest, the Black Theatre Review, Journal of Intersectionality, The Pierian Literary Journal, and Departures in Critical Qualitative Research. She co-edited, Wish to Live: The Hip-hop Feminism Pedagogy Reader and is currently completing a collection of short stories entitled, Cimarron: A Collection of Stories. Like its Spanish meaning (wild and untamed), the stories in Cimarron show us what it means when Black girls, women, and people are wild and untamed and what it costs them should they choose to remain that way.

Pedagogy

Her pedagogical style takes the same approach as her art: fascination with critical making and Blackness. She finds that students learn best when creativity, critical self-reflection, along with critical reading are centered. While she is interested in getting students to critically think she is also insistent on collaboration. Every class she teaches asks students to learn not only engage Black feminism, sexuality, and cultures but it asks students to understand that knowing Black studies means being in community. As students’ will tell you “in a Kwakye class you’re going to have to make something and you’re going to have to do it together”. She believes that teaching students to make something meaningful to them demonstrates their learning well beyond a traditional assignment and hopes to remind them that freedom requires them to be creative and communal.

Praxis

Kwakye’s approach to praxis can be summed up with two African proverbs, “Each one Teach One” and “If you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far go together”. Every lesson she learns she shares and her deepest desire is to go far. Whether she’s individually advising students, or an RSO , working in the community with K-12 teachers teaching Black studies, mentoring graduate students in formal programs or individually, or doing departmental, College, Campus service, and national service via journals or organizations she is committed to sharing what she knows, collaborating ethically, and centering joy.