Program: Ph.D.
Email: maehamil@indiana.edu
Previous Degrees: DePaul University, 2009, MA – Women’s and Gender Studies; Northwestern University, 1986, – BA – English, Fiction Writing Concentration
Area of Study: Memory
Research interests:
Memory and Trauma; Embodied Memory; Transatlantic Slave Trade; Community Healing, Grieving, and Ritual; Yoruba Orisa Practices; Thanatology; Ancestral Practices; Mourning and Funeral Practices; Brasil (Bahia and Itaparica)
Bio:Maria Eliza Hamilton Abegunde (Osunbimpe Abegunde) is an egungun (ancestral) priest in the Yoruba Orisa tradition and Reiki Master with a focus on the recovery of ancestral memory from the Earth and human body. Her ongoing research is on embodied memory of the Middle Passage and slave trade for African Americans and Afro-Brasilians.
She is currently collaborating with visual artist LaShawnda Crowe Storm on the ongoing Ancestral Masquerades series. "Be/Coming", the first masquerade, was selected as part of the Collaborative Vision: The Poetic Dialogue Project.
Selected Interviews/Conference Papers
"Tell Them Arroyo Sent You: A Middle Passage Voyage on Route to Brasil" (2011, WFHB, "Interchange with William Morris")
Interchange: Crossing the Middle Passage
"Healing Mind and Body: A Memory Keeper Shares Her Story" (2010, WFHB, "Interchange with William Morris")Healing Mind and Body
"Tell Them Arroyo Sent You: A Middle Passage Voyage on Route to Brasil" (2011, WFHB, "Interchange with William Morris")
"Sankofa in Action: Creating a Plan That Works - Healing the Causes of Violence to Stop the Violence" (2011, Herman C. Hudson Symposium, Indiana University)
"Healing Mind and Body: A Memory Keeper Shares Her Story" (2010, WFHB, "Interchange with William Morris")
"The Life That Was My Own: Making Meaning of Memory When the Past Becomes [the] Present" (2010, Modern Language Association, Rocky Mountain)
"When the Past Becomes [the] Present: Remembering and Writing My Own Ancestral Past" (2010, Let Spirit Speak, City College of New York)
"Rural Brasil and the Black Experience: Dreams Deferred – Itaparica 2003-2005" (2010, Indiana University)
"In the Tongue of Our Elders: The Ancestral Voice in the Poetry of the African Diaspora" (2007, Associated Writing Programs Conference)
"Contemporary Magical Realists" (2004, Margin Magazine)
Selected Publications/Exhibitions/Performances
"Ancestral Masquerades" Series (exhibitions) with LaShawnda Crowe Storm (ongoing)
"When the Past Becomes [the] Present: Remembering and Writing My Own Ancestral Past" (Let Spirit Speak! Cultural Journeys through the African Diaspora, SUNY Press, forthcoming 2012)
"Knowing Your Primary Divination Tool: A Diviner Reveals Herself" (nocturnes, forthcoming 2012)
Bridges and Borders: Voices of Immigrant Women, Co-Editor (2011, Jane's Stories Press Foundation)
Black Diaspora Review, Guest Co-Editor (Spring 2011)
"Sankofa in Action: Creating a Plan That Works - Healing the Causes of Violence to Stop the Violence" (Black Diaspora Review, Spring 2011)
"The Divining" (2010, Theatrical Production of excerpts from The Ariran's Last Life, Buskirk-Chumley Theatre, JMUSE Productions)
The Ariran's Last Life (excerpt, Best African American Fiction 2010)
The Ariran's Last Life (excerpt, 2008, The Kenyon Review)
"Creating Community, Movement, Foundations, Scholarship, Soul", Curator (2009, Indiana University)
"Collaborative Vision: The Poetic Dialogue Project" (2009-2010, "Be/Coming", Chicago Cultural Center and Indiana State University Art Museum; part of "Ancestral Masquerades" Series)
Professional Affiliations:
INVR/HHEW
http://www.invrhhew.org/index.html
ASWAD
http://www.aswadiaspora.org/
Professional Profile Links
http://iub.academia.edu/MariaHamiltonAbegunde
Cave Canem Poets
http://www.cavecanempoets.org/profiles
Chicago Healers
http://www.chicagohealers.com/energy-healing-intuitive-spiritual-reiki/abegunde/
Jane’s Stories Press Foundation
http://www.janecircle.org/
Sacatar Foundation – Brazil
http://www.sacatar.com.br/site/ing/alumni.asp?id=9
