Rate My Professor Anika Wilson

Anika Wilson is an Associate Professor in the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she has served as Department Chair. She earned her PhD in Folklore and Folklife from the University of Pennsylvania. Wilson's research focuses on gender and legal systems in southern Africa, rumor, gossip, and urban legends, vernacular health beliefs in Africa, and African religion and spirituality. Her scholarship explores how folklore shapes responses to social issues, particularly in Malawi, including conspiracy rumors surrounding AIDS, occult beliefs tied to domesticity and mobility, and cultural narratives around public health and gender dynamics.

Wilson's major publication is the book Folklore, Gender, and AIDS in Malawi: No Secret Under the Sun (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), which analyzes Malawian rumors, proverbs, songs, and urban legends to illuminate gendered experiences of the AIDS epidemic and critiques of government accountability. This work received the Elli Köngäs-Maranda Prize from the American Folklore Society for feminist scholarship in folklore. Key articles include "Treating the Government Disease: AIDS Conspiracy Rumors, the Government of Malawi, and the Rhetoric of Accountability" (Contemporary Legend, vol. 2, 2012, pp. 57-84) and "Of Love Potions and Witch Baskets: Domesticity, Mobility, and Occult Rumors in Malawi" (Western Folklore, vol. 71, no. 2, 2012, pp. 149-173). Her publications have garnered over 60 citations on Google Scholar. Wilson teaches courses including Black Reality: Survey of African-American Society, Introduction to Black Social and Cultural Traditions, Survey of African Societies and Culture, Sex, Marriage, and Healthcare in the Afroworld, Cultural Transmissions: Black Africa, Black America, and Folklore in the African World. She has delivered lectures on topics such as domestic violence and custom in Malawian courts, urban legends of rape, magic, and women's rights, and the transformation of disease-related conspiracy theories via social media in southern Africa. Wilson contributes to university governance through faculty committees and participates in dialogues on racial justice and environmental conservation involving spiritual elements in African contexts.