profile-default

Anika Wilson

Associate Professor
 Mitchell Hall 215
Faculty and Academic Staff

Education

PhD, University of Pennsylvania

Research & Teaching Interests

Gender and legal systems in southern Africa; rumor, gossip and urban legends; vernacular health beliefs (Africa); African religion and spirituality

Course Sampling

Africol 100: Black Reality: Survey of Afican American Society
Africol 215: Black Social and Cultural Traditions
Africol 232: Survey of African Societies and Culture
Africol 351: Sex, Marriage, and Healthcare in the Afroworld
Africol 450: Cultural Transmissions: Black Africa, Black America
Africol 852: Folklore in the African World

Selected Publications

Wilson, A. (2013) Folklore, Gender, and AIDS in Malawi: No Secret Under the Sun.Palgrave Macmillan.
Wilson, A. (2012) Treating the Government Disease: AIDS Conspiracy Rumors, the Government of Malawi, and the Rhetoric of Accountability.Contemporary Legend, 2, 57-84.
Wilson, A. (2012) Of Love Potions and Witch Baskets: Domesticity, Mobility, and Occult Rumors in Malawi.Western States Folklore Society, . (Ed). Western Folklore, 71(2), 149-173.

Works in Progress

Gender Conflict and the Law: Courts, Narratives, and the Vernacularization of Human Rights in Malawi (book project)

“Vanishing Hitchhiker, Vanishing gods: Urban Legends of the Spiritual Insecurity of Development”

Selected Presentations

African Studies Association Annual Meeting, Baltimore, Maryland, “Aids is the Past: Rumors of a New STI in the Age of AIDS Normalization.” November 2013

“Come Divorce Me Because You are Divorcing Me. American Folklore Society Annual Meeting, Providence, RI.” October 2013

“Vanishing Hitchhiker, Vanishing God.” People, Places and Stories: an Interdisciplinary and International conference hosted by Linnaeus University in Kalmar, Sweden, Sept. 28-30, 2011

“I Put a Spell on You: The Complicated Case of Love Medicines as AIDS Prevention.” American Folklore Society Annual Meeting: Nashville, TN. Oct. 2010

“‘Funny Yet Sorrowful’: Humor and pathos in tales of women ‘fighting’ for their lives in northern Malawi.” American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting: Philadelphia, PA. Dec. 2009

“The Nightmare of AIDS from a Familiar Stranger: Emerging Supernatural Assault Traditions in Malawi.” American Folklore Society Annual Meeting: Boise, ID. Oct. 2009.