Stephanie Shonekan
Ph.d. ethnomusicology
Email 312-344-7167
Stephanie Shonekan, Ph.D. is Professor of Humanities and Cultural Studies. She earned her bachelors and masters in Nigeria from the University of Jos and the University of Ibadan respectively. She majored in English for her undergraduate degree and continued to focus on English with a concentration in Literature for her masters degree. Her masters research drew her into a concentrated study of the African American literature and music. Specifically, Shonekan’s thesis examined the connections between African American poetry and music. Her comparative study examined two pairs of African American artists – Langston Hughes and Louis Armstrong; and LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) and Miles Davis. With this research, Shonekan’s interest in the study of black creative expression and cultural studies was cemented.
After obtaining her masters degree, Shonekan worked for Arthur Andersen in Lagos Nigeria for 5 years and then decided to return to academia to pursue her interests in literature, music, and culture. In 1996, she enrolled in the Ph.D. program in Ethnomusicology and Folklore at Indiana University Bloomington and minored in African American Studies. As a Ph.D. student and candidate, Shonekan worked first as a graduate assistant and then as the Assistant Director of Indiana University’s Archives of African American Music and Culture. In addition, Shonekan taught as an adjunct professor in various departments at Indiana University’s Bloomington and Gary campuses. In her dissertation titled One Life Two Voices: The Examination, Exploration, and Exposition of the Life of Camilla Williams, Soprano, Shonekan studied issues of voice and identity that emerge when the personalities of 2 black women from opposite sides of the Atlantic unite in the presentation of a collaborative autobiography.
At Columbia College she teaches classes that focus on the art and literature that is created by people of African descent, including Black Arts Movement, Harlem Renaissance: 1920s Art and Literature, and Contemporary Africa: Life Literature and Music.
Shonekan has presented several papers at international conferences, including the Society for Ethnomusicology, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, and the Conference on the Study of Slave Life and Culture in the African Diaspora at Indiana University’s History Department.
Shonekan’s research interests build on her Ph.D. dissertation research and include black women, life writing, as well as investigating the evolving parallels that exist in the literature and music of Africa and the African Diaspora. She is currently completing work on a collaborative autobiography depicting the life of the notable African American opera singer, Camilla Williams. Shonekan is also conducting ongoing research on Nigerian hip hop music and culture as well as a new research project titled, “Black Women in Love: Self, Song, Story; A Global Examination of the Love Lives of Black Women.” In this global study, Shonekan intends to conduct research on the love lives, love stories, and love songs of women in Nigeria, Trinidad, and the United States. Shonekan’s own intertwined Nigerian and Trinidadian heritage inspires continued study of black women across the African Diaspora.
Shonekan is currently working on a fictionalized animated film based on the life of Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, Nigerian women's activist and mother of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. The film is titled Lioness of Lisabi.