Faculty Profile

Dr. Betty Sibongile Dlamini
Lecturer, African Studies and Department of Linguistics
Email: bsdlamin [AT] indiana.edu
Phone: (812) 855-6786

Education:
PhD – The University of London: School of Oriental and African Studies (UK), 2008
MA – University of Sussex Brighton (UK), 2002
Honors – University of South Africa - Pretoria, 2001
B. Ed. –University of Swaziland, 1998

I teach isiZulu and other courses related to African cultures. Last academic year I taught Gumboot Dance: Beauty from Pain and The Southern African Culture of Song and Dance. I have also designed a course, the Umhlanga Reed Dance which will be taught this fall semester (2009). I have been actively involved in other activities within the wider Bloomington Community such as Singing with the Bethel AME Church Choir and the Universal Church Choir in IMU on the commemoration of Martin Luther King (MLK Interfaith Service). I taught about and demonstrated Gumboot Dance to young people from Indiana Schools during the World Languages Festival in March 2009. I also demonstrated Gumboot Dance to children and parents at the Lotus Festival in March 2009. I have been to several schools within and outside of Bloomington to talk about Gumboot Dance and demonstrate how to dance it. During the Juneteenth Celebration I performed the song, Moving Forward which is from my coming album, Moving Forward named after the same song. I have sung and danced corporately and alone at African Languages Teachers Association meetings and at National African Languages Resources Center events in Madison-Wisconsin. I also been actively involved with Cry of the Child, youth work in Bloomington and shared the stage with internationally acclaimed Producer and Director, Gary Hines on Friday, July 31st 2009 at the SOUNDS OF BLACKNESS Youth Workshop in Bloomington.

I have published over twenty-seven creative works of literary art in SiSwati, isiZulu and English used in schools and universities in Swaziland and South Africa. These works include all four genre of literature and some of them have been developed to radio plays and TV drama. My most recent publication was a SiSwati novel, uMsamaliya Lolungile that won the Macmillan Grand prize for the year, 2008. My short stories written in English won a prize with the English Association of South Africa in 1997 and before that I published short stories in SiSwati and later translated them into isiZulu. The isiZulu anthology of short stories, Isicamelo won the “Sibusiso Nyembezi-Heinemann Award for Anthologies" in 1991. I have translated documentary films for Rise Films in collaboration with BBC Channel Four. One of Rise Films documentaries based in South Africa, “We Are Together” has won over twelve worldwide awards. I have also done translation work for Amnesty International in London.

I have won numerous international awards including the Sino-Swazi award from China and Swaziland; two awards from the German Development Foundation and the Association of Commonwealth Universities. My research interest has become part of my life because wherever I have been in the world, Swaziland, Southern Africa, the UK and now US, I teach and demonstrate the use of performance arts (song, dance and acting) as a tool in the total development of humans.

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