Those who are staying at Penn State for fall break have an opportunity to expand their minds outside of the classroom.

At 2 p.m. tomorrow, Iyunolu Osagie will be discussing her book The Amistad Revolt: Memory, Slavery and the Politics of Identity in the United States and Sierra Leone, at Barnes & Noble, 365 Benner Pike.

Osagie, an associate professor of English at Penn State for the past eight years, has been working on her book for the past five years, finally completing the entire project in 1999.

Her book addresses the 1839 revolt on the Amistad slave ship that Steven Spielberg made popular in his 1997 movie. The shipboard uprising took place off the coast of Cuba, but was carried to the coast of the United States due to navigational error. The Amistad revolt raised many questions in the United States concerning slavery, race and the legality of freedom.

Osagie's take on the historical event is fresh. Unlike her contemporaries, she focuses not on the legal issues of the event, but the cultural and sociological issues.

"I explored some of the things that happened after the Africans won their case and returned to Sierra Leone, and the way in which the Amistad story is being received in Sierra Leone today," Osagie said.

Osagie traveled to Sierra Leone to do fieldwork and interviews, because the Amistad story is much alive today in the country. She also went to Tulane University and examined letters written by white missionaries who traveled with the Africans back to Sierra Leone.

"We enjoy working with local authors. There isn't a lot on that subject in the way she is covering it," said Joan Lynn, community relations manager for Barnes and Noble.

Growing up in Sierra Leone, Osagie couldn't understand why it was possible for her to go through her schooling and never hear about the Amistad revolt.

"We had a colonial education that dealt with European history instead of African. Africa didn't have any history. One of the main things I wanted to know was why we choose to forget, which is a very deliberate thing," Osagie said.

The book is a cross-disciplinary study because Osagie looked at the Amistad event from many angles. She examined the Amistad revolt in aspects of art history, film, and drama, but based her perspective on a literary foundation. She also deals with collective memory, bringing in a sociological viewpoint.

"It is very useful for anyone in cultural studies because it compares the cultural reception between the United States and Sierra Leone, which is unusual," Osagie said.

The book talk and signing are free and open to the public.