Dr. Carol A. Blackshire-Belay

With a background in German linguistics as well as African and African American studies, Dr. Carol A. Blackshire-Belay has created a niche for herself as a researcher and instructor. Throughout her career, Dr. Blackshire-Belay has used the idea that by comparing two very different cultures and languages, students can learn how diversity manifests itself within a particular society.

Dr. Carol A. Blackshire-Belay studied linguistics from her days as a first-year undergraduate at the University of Michigan to her defense of her doctoral dissertation at Princeton University. She used her understanding of the German language and culture as a way to bridge culture gaps so she could better understand the African and African American experience. Dr. Blackshire-Belay gained valuable experience in her field as a visiting teacher and scholar in German universities throughout the early 1980s, and she was invited on several occasions to work as a Visiting Research Professor at a number of different academic institutions in West Africa that specialized in Germanic Studies, specifically in Benin, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Togo.

As an author, Dr. Carol A. Blackshire-Belay is well published and has written 13 books on a variety of topics, such as language, linguistics, culture, and current events in both Africa and Germany. She has worked with other scholars on a number of different books and contributed over 23 articles or chapters toward collaborative research efforts. Dr. Blackshire-Belay has presented guest lectures on several notable topics over the last 20 years, including analysis of German reunification, understanding cultural and linguistic diversity in society, and an introduction of the impact of Ebonics as a language in the classroom.

Throughout her career as a researcher and instructor, Dr. Carol A. Blackshire-Belay has specialized in several different fields within linguistics, including morphology and syntax, comparative linguistics, phonetics and phonology, and language acquisition. She has a complex understanding of several languages including German – of which she has attained near-native fluency – French, and several African language families. Dr. Blackshire-Belay has studied African American theory and research methodology as well as diversity issues within the United States.