Faculty biography - Sonja Darlington
Sonja Darlington is an education scholar and an Africanist with expertise in languages, literature, and the arts. She teaches courses in Education Foundations, Alternative Education, Youth Culture, Comparative and International Education, and African Literature and Politics. Her bachelor’s studies were in German Literature and Music at Baldwin Wallace College, and her M.A. and Ph.D. were in English Literature and Curriculum and Instruction from Iowa State University. Professor Darlington’s experience includes directing the ACM Tanzania Program in 2004 and presenting frequently at conferences internationally: the University of Dar es Salaam, TZ; University of the Western Cape, SA; University of Botswana; University of Abuja, NG; Fine Arts College, University of Addis Ababa, ET; University of Nairobi, KE; Makerere University, UG; and the University of Cheikh Anta Diop University, SN. Since 1992 she has taught at Beloit College in the Education and Youth Studies department; her interdisciplinary courses focus on various regions in Africa for the First Year Seminar, and she cross lists course offerings with African Studies and Women and Gender Studies. As a Swiss native, Professor Darlington speaks German fluently and has studied French, Kiswahili and Arabic.
Professor Darlington’s class at the International Language and Leadership School in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Most recently, Professor Darlington has taught in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and placed and supervised students in local educational sites: RAIDA School in Dar es Salaam, TZ and LEAP School in Cape Town, SA. She frequently combines her experience with investigative work on African literature, environmental studies, the arts, and international education. As a contributor to many journals, including Research in African Literatures (RAL), Journal of African Literature Association (JALA), and African Studies Quarterly (ASQ), Professor Darlington eagerly seeks out links between indigenous knowledge and formal educational systems, immigration patterns and visual art exhibits, youth culture and squatter housing, and development studies and global networking. She combines these research interests in courses such as “Agrarian Perspectives in African Novels and Contemporary Economic Policies,” in which readings and class discussions are based on land use, land rights, and sustainability and on themes in novels from Botswana, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Nigeria, where the cultural values of indigenous groups, regarding their land use, have been threatened.
Professor Darlington with Nigerian dramatist Tess Onwueme (right) and other presenters at the Onwueme Conference in Abuja, Nigeria.
In work on Botswana’s premiere writer Bessie Head, Professor Darlington strongly supports students’ scholarly input. Her paper “Bessie Head’s Response to ‘The Call of the Global,’” in The Life and Work of Bessie Head: A Celebration of the Seventieth Anniversary of her Birth by Botswana’s Pentagon Publisher and in JALA, analyzed 15 undergraduate papers on Bessie Head’s land and nature writing. As with other First Year Seminar courses, “Coming of Age stories at the Crossroads of Africa: Negotiating Islamic Traditions” and “Environmental Cross Currents in Ethiopia and Sudan: Literary and Visual Contexts,” her teaching involves a pedagogy, which emphasizes dialogue, lived experience, alternative knowledge systems, and interdisciplinarity. She has in-depth practical knowledge of the complexities involved in approaching research in sub-Saharan countries and enjoys the challenge of connecting students with their personal academic and extra-curricular goals. In the case of the ACM Botswana study abroad seminar, she believes that students’ independent projects will offer an extraordinary opportunity to explore research topics that delve into the uniqueness of Botswana’s people and institutions. The course she will be offering has been designed to provide in-depth consideration of experiences/ideas on youth culture and education as seen through the township of Francistown, the rural life in Serowe, the goals of the National Students Union, the immigration issues of neighboring Zimbabweans, the 28 languages in Botswana, and the badimo (spirits) and kagisano (social harmony) in religious education (RE). She also anticipates being able to invite many guest speakers from the Gaborone community, such as Professor Herman Batibo, a well-known, published specialist on African Linguistics at the University of Botswana.