Africana Studies

I am an Assistant Professor of African History and an affiliate faculty member of the Africana Studies Centre at Oklahoma State University. Prior to joining OSU, I was a Faculty of Arts & Science Postdoctoral Fellow in African and African Diaspora History at the University of Toronto, where I obtained my PhD as a Carmen Brock Fellow in sub-Saharan African History, Vanier/SSHRC Scholar, and a Professor Emeritus Martin Klein Fellow in African History. My research and teaching interests encompass gender and women's history, war and society, violence and conflict studies, the history of crime, law, and punishment, Black and diaspora studies, genocide, human rights, and humanitarian histories, as well as global and transnational history.

My forthcoming book, Inventing Order: Crime, Law, and Punishment in Nigeria and the Diaspora (University of Rochester Press), adopts a multidisciplinary approach to examine the evolution of crimes (armed robbery, immigration fraud, financial fraud, drug trafficking) in Nigeria and their local and global implications. Inventing Order demonstrates how crimes orchestrated by Nigerians shaped the societies of the United States, India, and the United Kingdom, as well as the legal, diplomatic, technological, and social investments and responses of the American, Indian and British governments to the menace, particularly in the twentieth century. My second book will be published by Ohio University Press. Entitled Soldiers on Rampage: Gender, Violence and Resistance in Biafra during the Nigerian Civil War, 1967-1970, the book examines the impact of the wartime violence between the Nigerian and Biafran soldiers on Biafran women and their families, and the women's responses to wartime atrocities. Adopting a global approach, the book also explores the roles of the Cold War powers (Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union) in the conflict and the implications of their interventions on Biafran women. The book demonstrates how food was central to the constant violence unleashed on women in the heartland of Biafra. 

I am working on several book projects, including an exploration of how Nigeria's transnational diplomacy shaped and sustained the armed resistance of the African liberation guerrillas, wartime refugees' resettlement and experiences in Africa, and the efforts of American organizations in decolonization, anti-imperialism, and deracialization processes in Africa throughout the twentieth century. 

I have published extensively on the above themes in specialist, multidisciplinary, and area studies journals, including War and Society, The International History Review, the Journal of World History, Gender & History,  Africa Today, Journal of Globalization Studies, War in History, The Journal of Global South Studies, The Canadian Historical Review, and Journal of History. 

In 2025, I received an Honourable Mention from the Canadian Association of African Studies for the Pius Adesanmi Early Career Research Excellence Award. My research has been supported by grants from the Society for Military History (SMH), the Royal Historical Society (RHS), Stanford University’s Hoover Institution Library & Archives Scholar Research Support, and Northwestern University’s Melville J. Herskovits Library Research Grant.  

I serve on the Editorial Review Boards of the African Studies Association journal, History in Africa, published by Cambridge University Press; and the Canadian Association of African Studies journal, the Canadian Journal of African Studies, published by Taylor & Francis. I have recently been invited by the International Institute of Genocide and Human Rights Studies to serve as a founding editor of Scholar’s Corner, a subsidiary blog of the journal, Genocide Studies International, published by University of Toronto Press. 

I am the current President of the African Military Studies Association (AMSA), a coordinate organization of the African Studies Association. I am a fellow of the Society for Military History (SMH) and an Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (RHS). 

Dr. Reanae McNeal is an Assistant Professor in Africana Studies and Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies. Her research involves decolonial and holistic approaches to accentuating the lived experiences and healing activism of Afro-Indigenous, African American, and Indigenous women, and Black enslaved/freedwomen as well as U.S. Women of Color(s). Thus, her research also focuses on the interrelated histories of African Americans and Native Americans, Womanism/Womanist Spiritual Activism, Digital Ethnic Studies/Digital Humanities, and Health/Healing justice. McNeal promotes social-healing change, advances cross-cultural understanding, cultivates restorative and transformative justice, and fosters the healing of deep wounds through radical love and transformation. McNeal's research-based creative work and scholarly endeavors address such topics as diverse (her)stories, resiliency, faith, spirituality, healing, and mental wellness. Her scholarly-creative work also addresses colonial, historical, and gendered racial traumas as well as advocating for communities of care. McNeal is currently completing her book on the (her)stories of Afro-Indigenous Women's Survivance that also underscores the activist endeavors of Black and Native women. She is the recipient of the NCTE Early Career Educator of Color award and selected as one of OSU's Center for the Humanities Research Group Fellows for the 2022-2023 academic year. Her work has also been supported by the prestigious Catherine Prelinger Award from the Coordinating Council for Women in History.

Research Interests:

Afro-Indigenous Studies
Afro-Indigenous Women's Survivance and Activism

Interrelated Histories of African Americans and Native Americans
Africana/African American Studies
Womanist Studies

Black Women's Studies
U.S. Women of Color(s) Activism
Enslaved Women/Freedwomen
Black and Indigenous Digital Studies
BlPOC Women's Activism
Women's Leadership and Wellness
Colonial, Historical, Gendered Racial, Generational, and Individual Traumas
Empowerment and Resiliency
Reparative, Restorative and Transformative Justice
Health Justice, Healing Justice, and Wellness
Communities of Care
Transformative Pedagogies

I joined the Department of Sociology and the Center for Africana Studies at Oklahoma State University in Fall 2024. I received my BA in Swahili language and Literature from Moi University in Kenya, and an MA and a Ph.D. in African Cultural Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. My research uses Autoethnography and personal narratives to understand how through language, discourses of gender and sexuality are produced, negotiated, and expressed in post-colonial African settings. I am primarily concerned with how local and global discourses shape and influence contemporary black masculinity. Employing both decolonial and transnational feminist methodologies, my research activities and pedagogical approaches recognize the self as a crucial site of social justice activism as well as an important epistemological locus.

Research Interests:

Autoethnography, Decoloniality, Race, Class, & Gender Inequality, Language & Society, Third-World Feminism(s), Foreign Language Pedagogy

Dr. LaRicka Wingate is a Professor of Psychology and an affiliate faculty member in Africana Studies at Oklahoma State University. She focuses on Black-centered mental health research, particularly exploring protective factors for African Americans and marginalized groups. Her research examines key aspects such as acculturation, racial microaggressions, historical trauma, racial discrimination, and intersectionality, with a focus on Black suicide and mental health. Dr. Wingate has published over 80 scholarly works. She has received several honors, including the 2020 Inspiring Excellence Award and the inaugural Dr. Patricia A. Bell Inclusive Excellence Faculty Award. She also served as the Director of the OSU Africana Studies program from 2014 to 2017 and directed the Laboratory for the Study of Suicide Risk and Resilience from 2006 to 2020. Raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, Dr. Wingate earned her Ph.D. from Florida State University and joined OSU's faculty in 2006.