Tamanika Ferguson

Title: Visiting Assistant Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Department: Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Degrees: B.A., M.A., California State University; Ph.D., Howard University

Contact Info:
Email: tferguson@allegheny.edu
Phone: (814) 332-4330

Office Location: Odd Fellows 217
Office Hours (Spring ’23): Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays 11:15am-1:15pm
or by appointment

Courses (Spring ’23)
WGSS 100 – Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
WGSS 190 – Prison Activism in the U.S.

Tamanika Ferguson is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies with a Ph.D. in Communication, Culture, and Media Studies and a joint Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies from Howard University. She also holds a M.A. in Africana Studies and Sociology and a B.A. in Africana Studies from the California State University, Dominguez Hills. Specializing in communication
and media studies, critical race, and feminist theory, and carceral studies, her teaching and research emphasizes racial and gender justice and social activism of incarcerated people in the California Prison Industrial Complex.

She is currently teaching Introduction to Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and is planning to teach “The Evolution of Prison Activism in the United States in Spring 2023. She currently has several writing projects in the pipeline, including journal articles and a book project: Voice from The Inside: Incarcerated Women Speak. The book project delves into the social and intellectual thought of incarcerated women and nonbinary people as cultural and political intervention and legitimate knowledge sources, as documented in their writings and advocacy work with the California Coalition for Women Prisoners. This project has been supported by grants from the University of Maryland, the Organization for Research on Women and Communication (ORWAC), and the American Association of University Women (AAUW).