Honors Program

Professor Fatima Shaik’s “Economy Hall” gets rave reviews!

Fatima Shaik’s, adjunct professor of Communication and Media Culture (formerly assistant professor), new book Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood is receiving incredible reviews ahead of its release and has been named one of four new books to read for Black History Month by Kirkus Reviews. The review reads, “ournalist and novelist Shaik blows the dust off the ancient records of an African American society, revealing a forgotten past…. [Economy Hall is] a lively, readable story that nicely complicates the view of racial and ethnic relations in the South of old.”

The book, which tells the story of the Société d’Economie et d’Assistance Mutuelle, a 19th century brotherhood of some of “the most important multi-ethnic, intellectual communities in the US South: educators, world-traveling merchants, soldiers, tradesmen, and poets.” Shaik used the Société’s journals, translating them from their original French, to tell the brotherhood’s story. Honors research assistants Kimberly Jaramillo ’20 and Natalie Kita ’21 worked with Shaik on this publication.

Fatima Shaik was born in the historic Seventh Ward of New Orleans and bred on the oral histories told by her Creole family and neighbors. A member of the Saint Peter’s faculty since 1991, Shaik designed the curriculum and directed the Communication program and major for its first decade. Before joining academia, she was a writer and editor by profession. She began her career as a daily reporter for the New Orleans Times-Picayune and associate editor for several Louisiana statewide newspapers. She was assistant editor for McGraw-Hill World News and editor for its Foreign Digests. Her freelance articles have appeared in national publications including Essence, Black Enterprise, The New York Times, In These Times, and The Root. She directed the NYU/AEJ Summer Internships for Minorities program. She is the author of five books of fiction. Her first narrative non-fiction book Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood is available for pre-order from The Historic New Orleans Collection.