CAS Newsletter 19-20

DR. SECK’S REFLECTIVE RETURN TO STANFORD
Dr. Fatoumata Seck is not only a CAS alumna, but one of
Stanford’s newest faculty members in interdisciplinary
studies. Specializing in francophone African and Caribbean
studies with an emphasis on cultural, economic, and
diaspora studies, her research brings together literary
criticism, anthropological theory, and various approaches to
materialism to investigate the impact of economic thought
and process in Senegalese works of fiction. “I work on
culture and political economy. I look at a writer’s commentary
on economic transformation in post-colonial Senegal:
what really happened and then what writers thought about
what happened. These writers developed very interesting
aesthetic strategies that I’m articulating in my work, trying to
understand how those strategies help us better understand
the complex transformation their society underwent,” she
said. When asked about how she arrived at such a topic, she
spoke about CAS’ influence. “If it wasn’t for the interdisciplinary
environment that CAS fostered, I don’t think I would’ve
arrived at this idea. CAS has this great environment where
students from different disciplines can sit together and think
about life, history, or really anything regarding Africa… and
when you have so many different perspectives around the
‘same thing’ and you learn what each discipline could bring
to the table…it’s literally what inspired me to start working
on this project.”
Dr. Seck went on to become a Susan Ford Dorsey Fellow,
traveling to Senegal to conduct her research, and later
landing a professorship at the City University of New York.
Despite her success abroad, however, she did miss what she
discovered at Stanford. “When I saw an opening in my field at
Stanford, I couldn’t resist. Since I’m working with so many
disciplines, it’s very important to have a campus where I can
go from anthropology, to literature, to cultural studies, back
to linguistics and so forth. The creativity and the spirit of
innovation in this area is contagious. On top of that, CAS is
that one place where people can actually convene, sit down,
and really spend quality time together, not just time to sit in
your corner, but time to have an exchange. One day I’m
talking to students from engineering and computer science,
and the next, history, literature, and linguistics. It’s a great
microcosm for students and faculty members alike. This
environment was very conducive to the making of my
research project a few years ago, so it’s exciting to come
back as I’m in the midst of turning it into a book.”
Literature Cultures and Languages (DLCL) and the Center
for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (CSRE),
she embraces the ways CAS will continue to support
her work. “It’s exciting to be back at CAS—not just a
community, but an intellectual community as well.
There are informal gatherings, where you can just
sit down and have a cup of tea to talk about life,
but also formal ones where we have our own
intellectual inquiries answered and engaged
with. It’s a place where you don’t just go for a
conference, you go to hear what people are
interested in, what people are thinking
about these days, to check the pulse of
the undergraduate population on
campus.
“We should definitely find ways to
grow and keep the program alive
because it is so important for this
place to exist inside the university.
Especially in the current
climate, it’s good to have a
center where people feel
comfortable speaking,
learning, and sharing,
where students have
physical, intellectual,
and emotional space
to exist on campus.”
Dr. Seck’s classes cut across various geographical areas and
linguistic traditions (Wolof, French, English, Spanish and
Portuguese) informed by critical theory on race, gender,
and ethnicity. While teaching in Stanford’s Division of
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