Teacher Feature: Dr. Embola

Sinziana Stanciu, ’20

November 2019

I recently got to sit down with a new and insightful professor, Dr. Embola, and asked her a few questions. She teaches 9th grade American Literature and Sophomore year Seminar. 

What brought you to BHSEC?

Professor Anna Dolan and I taught together in the Summer Language and Thinking Program at Bard and she asked me to apply for the job, and everyone knows you always do what Professor Dolan says.

How’s your transition been from teaching in that program to BHSEC?

It’s a different experience in the sense that I guess I was teaching in a ‘college environment’, and when you teach in the Language and Thinking program, you live on campus with the students so you’re with [them] all day for three weeks. In terms of the academic work, I don’t find too much of a difference because my teaching strategy remains the same. Actually, the way that I teach is the way Bard College trained me to teach, so I use the same methodology. What has been different is getting accustomed to the High School schedule…Teaching in 45 min increments is very challenging and a bit disorienting for me. I have adjusted somewhat, but I would prefer to teach 90 min classes; there’s just so much more opportunity to go deeper into the text and to interact with each other more...I really value hearing from students and the opportunity for them to participate in low-stakes writing. 

What was it like getting your Ph.D. in English with a specialization in Literatures of the African Diaspora?

It was long. I worked throughout my studies as a grant writer, so I always had to prioritize work… I did have a scholarship at Drew, but my scholarship only covered my tuition; it did not cover my living expenses, and I had ailing parents, and I had to take care of myself. So it took … me 12 years to get my Ph.D. It was very challenging but I wouldn’t change it. It was a wonderful growth opportunity, and a chance to make connections with people I otherwise would never have met and to figure out what I was interested in. When I started in 2000, I did not know that I would ultimately write my dissertation on the connections between black women's writing of the 20th century on both sides of the Atlantic. I grew into that interest based on the courses I ended up taking. Now, that experience … informed the way that I teach and my research interests. 

Could you tell us more about your dissertation?

My dissertation grew out of my own experience as an African immigrant woman. Growing up in Africa, like most Africans, I did not realize that I was black. I know that sounds weird saying it in America, but when everyone is black you don’t really think of yourself as black. It was not until I moved to the US in 1997 and experienced overt racism for the first time that I realized ‘Oh, okay’, and from that time onward I began to ask, ‘Where do I fit in this society?’ ‘Who am I as an immigrant, as a black woman, as a woman?’ I started looking for answers in the literature I was studying. In the course of [that search], I realized that even though I was not born in the US, and I was not descended from enslaved Africans, there were so many connections in the literature that I could see between black women as they were being represented by African American authors and by West African authors, all writing in the 20th century. I could see how both groups of women were being affected by oppression: the African American women were affected by the legacy of slavery and that was filtering into their writing and molding how they were depicting women characters, and the West African women were affected by the legacy of colonialism and that was influencing how they were writing about women’s lives in the 20th century. In my desire to figure out who I was as an African woman living as an African American in America, I found connections between these two groups of people. 

Credit: Dr. Embola

If you could teach a course on anything at BHSEC what would it be and why?

I would like to teach a course based on my dissertation and the six novels that I focused on. I’ll start with the 20th century, but there’s so much writing coming out of Africa and the diaspora now so I’d like to incorporate that as well. 

If you could change one book in the freshman literary canon, which would it be?

I wouldn’t necessarily change anything, but if I’d had more time, I would’ve liked to have read Toni Morrison’s Beloved right after reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It was fascinating reading it because I was reading it for the first time along with my students. I had purposefully avoided it because of the cultural implications around the term ‘Uncle Tom’. Imagine my surprise when I realized that Uncle Tom is not an ‘Uncle Tom’! - but we did figure out why that cultural stereotype emerged. My reading of the book also led to a lot of criticism of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s choices: even though she was trying to do this amazing thing, she did resort to a lot of racist stereotypes… I think unintentionally. We did have a lot of conversations about the challenges that come with representation. I think that it would’ve been a wonderful thing to look at how an African American writes about slavery and the impacts of slavery... I’m always fascinated by comparisons and the ways in which texts speak to each other. 

What are some of your hobbies?
Other than reading, I love to run. I love to write but I need a clear mind in order to write. I’m not a big party person, I am a home-body and I enjoy being at home with the people I love. Sitting at home reading a book and literally doing nothing is such a treat for me. I watch “90-Day Fiancé”; that’s my brain candy. It’s very bad but it’s fun to watch… I love to hang out with close friends and family. 

What’s your favorite book?

I can’t pick a favorite book because what I read and what I enjoy depends on where I am in my life. I have fallen in love with so many books over the years... When I first came to this country, the very first book I read was D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley's Lover. I remember reading Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being and being fascinated by that. I remember reading Gabriel García Márquez’s One- Hundred Years of Solitude… I love that kind of literature. I even love books like Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth which I would literally sneak it into the bathroom at work to read it because I couldn’t put it down… The one book I keep returning to is the Bible, interestingly enough. It’s a fascinating book to read, in my opinion. The wording is very simple and plain - yet it has been used throughout history to support either amazingly good things or amazingly bad things… The Bible is the one book I have read multiple times, but I can’t say that I have one favorite book. Right now, I’m not reading anything for fun. I feel guilty that I’m not reading more than just my school books. 

Do you have a favorite show?

I’ve been addicted to the news since January of 2017. I keep thinking that I don’t want to wake up one day and be shocked so I’d better stay on top of current events by watching the news… The United States is unique in how the news is presented. Whenever I leave the US, it’s amazing to me how different the world looks when I’m not viewing it through an American lens. Like when I’m watching Al Jazeera, it’s very different in my mind. One year, I watched an international conflict unfolding while I was in the States, and then I went home to Cameroon and watched the same conflict unfolding on Al Jazeera, and it was as if I hadn’t seen a whole side of the story while I was in the US and that just continues to amaze me. I haven’t been very good at making sure that while I’m in the States I’m accessing as much international news media as I should. I do definitely know that we are in a kind of cocoon here in the US. One of the wonderful things about being an immigrant is I do get to have this double vision and go back and forth… One of the wonderful things about being in academia is that we can have different philosophies or positions and still have respect for each other. That’s one of the joys of my life: to be able to debate ideas and not judge people as good or bad based solely on the fact that they have a different position than you. I hope that in academia we maintain that ethos, and that we always hold on to the power and privilege that comes with being able to debate different ideas.