Department of African and African American Studies

April 10, 2025

4:00 PM |Slosberg Recital Hall

Join Brandeis Departments of Music and African and African American Studies in welcoming Michael Veal, Yale University ethnomusicologist, who will speak on "Sirius Musicology: Arcane Analysis and the 1970s Jazz Avant-Garde"

April 7, 2025

4:00PM | International Lounge, Usdan

The 2025 Ruth First Memorial Lecture featuring Professor with Professor Paul Tiyambe Zeleza, Professor of African Studies at Howard University.

The global landscape of higher education is undergoing profound transformations in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, reshaping institutional priorities, governance structures, and academic models. This lecture will critically examine three interconnected challenges that are redefining the post-pandemic academy: the enduring crisis of university financing, the shifting dynamics of internationalization, and the disruptive impact of artificial intelligence (AI).

Building on insights from my recently published book, Re-Envisioning the African and American Academies (October 2024), this lecture will explore the financial sustainability of universities amid declining public funding, shifting enrollment patterns, and rising operational costs. It will also assess the evolving landscape of global higher education partnerships, student mobility, and knowledge production, particularly in the face of geopolitical realignments and digital transformation. The third focal point will be the AI revolution, which is accelerating changes in teaching, research, and university governance, raising pressing questions about ethics, equity, and the future of academic labor.

March 31, 2025

3:00 PM | International Lounge

 Join AAAS/WGS 148B for The Politics of Black Movement featuring Sammy Picone in conversation with Prof. Shoniqua Roach

March 27, 2025

12:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Rapaporte Treasure Hall

The Department of African and African-American Studies invites you to join us in celebrating 55 years of Black Studies at Brandeis University on Thursday, March 27, 2025. In honor of this anniversary, the department is hosting a series of panels about the possibilities of Black Studies.

For all events, an RSVP is requested. This event is hybrid; please see the RSVP form to register to attend remotely. Light refreshments will be available to guests attending in person. The public is welcome and encouraged to attend.

12:00-1:45 PM
Making a Life with Black Studies

A panel discussion featuring Brandeis alumnae Sharon Whittaker '81, President of the Brandeis Alumni of Color Network; Makayla Richards '20, community organizer and first-generation Afro-Caribbean femme living and working in Atlanta, Georgia. Her work blends together Black feminist frameworks and direct service to women, youth, and families; Professor Amaris Brown, '16, John Holmes Assistant Professor of the Humanities in the Department of English, Tufts University.

RSVP FOR EVENT HERE 

 2:15-3:30 PM
Black Studies and World-Building

Discussion featuring Professor Simone Browne, Dept of African and African Diaspora Studies, Director of the Center for Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, and author of the award-winning Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness. In conversation with Professor Wangui Muigai, AAAS, History, and HSSP.

RSVP FOR EVENT HERE 

4:00-6:00 PM
How Do We Already Change the World Through Play? with Professor mattie brice
2025 Eleanor Roosevelt Lecture in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Sponsored by the Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

WGS Annual Eleanor Roosevelt Lecture by Professor mattie brice, artist, designer, activist, UC Santa Cruz.

Since the turn of the 21st century, games, game design, and gamification gained wide attention as tools for social change work, introducing new participatory aesthetic frameworks to the social design field. However, design and technology are facing a decolonial reckoning that challenges how computational and social technologies are used to perpetuate and reinforce the power structures of western countries to the whole globe. Once we shift our focus to play and the marginalized folks engaging with it as a survival practice through a lens of gender, race, and sexuality, new alternative realities become possible for art and design activism.

*The Roosevelt Lecture does not require an RSVP and is in-person only.

March 27, 2025

4:00 - 6:00PM | Rapaporte Treasure Hall, Goldfarb Library

2025 Eleanor Roosevelt Lecture in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Sponsored by the Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Professor mattie brice (UC Santa Cruz) will discuss the use of games as tools for social change and survival. Since the turn of the 21st century, games, game design, and gamification gained wide attention as tools for social change work, introducing new participatory aesthetic frameworks to the social design field. However, design and technology are facing a decolonial reckoning that challenges how computational and social technologies are used to perpetuate and reinforce power structures of western countries to the whole globe. Once we shift our focus to play and the marginalized folks engaging with it as a survival practice through a lens of gender, race, sexuality, new alternative realities become possible for art and design activism.

*The Roosevelt Lecture does not require an RSVP and is in-person only.

March 25, 2025

4:00 - 6:00 PM | Mandel Forum, Mandel Center for Humanities

How does a changing world and its progressively counter-democratic ideologies and trajectories impact how we theorize, live, teach, and apply gender and feminisms of Africa in/and the US, European, and global African diaspora? Three distinguished and experienced feminist and gender studies leaders, scholars and activists provide critical perspectives on this perilous historical moment. A reception with refreshments will follow the discussion.

 About the Speakers:

• Dr. Nemata Blyden is the Armstead L. Robinson Professor of 19th Century African American History, the University of Virginia.
• Dr. J. Jarpa Dawuni is a lawyer, social entrepreneur, feminist scholar, Associate Professor of Political Science at Howard University, and the director of the Institute for African Women in Law.
• Dr. Christine Vogt-William is the Director of the Gender and Diversity Office of the Africa Multiple Cluster, University of Bayreuth, Germany.

 This event will be moderated by Dr. Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso, Associate Professor of African and African American Studies at Brandeis University.  

November 12, 2024

3:30pm-5:30pm|Rapaporte Treasure Hall, Farber Library

A reception will follow the formal program.

RSVP Here

Join AAAS for a celebration of the publication The Culture Trap by Brandeis University Professor Derron Wallace.

The Culture Trap critically examines how culture is sometimes used as a justification for racism in schools, reinforcing racial, class, and gender inequalities in education. This event will be of particular interest to those dedicated to justice, racial equity, public education, and youth advocacy.

The celebration will include reflections from three distinguished scholars:

• Bianca Baldridge, Harvard Graduate School of Education
• Prudence L. Carter, Brown University
• Reuel Rogers, Northwestern University

This event is cosponsored by African and African American Studies Department, Sociology Department, and Education Program.

October 21, 2024

4:00 pm|Rapaporte Treasure Hall, Farber Library

The African Diaspora Cluster Presented The 5th Annual M. Jacqui Alexander Lecture In African Diaspora Studies. Professor Hortense Spillers spoke in conversation with African and African American Studies Professor Shoniqua Roach.

Watch the event recording.

Professor Hortense Spillers, PhD’74, is a scholar whose theorizing has transformed the critical landscape of Black Feminism, Critical Theory, Literary Criticism, Black Diaspora Studies, and the narration of US American kinship and inheritance. She is Professor Emerita, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor, and Distinguished Research Professor, of Vanderbilt University.

March 29, 2023

African and African American Studies Professor Amber Spry and Rutgers University Professor Diane Wong will host a conversation on Black and Asian American Visions for Liberation in collaboration with Brandies' Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Studies.

This event will take place both in person in Golding 107 and virtually at 2:30 p.m. March 29.

Diane Wong is assistant professor of political science at Rutgers University, Newark. She is also an affiliate faculty of Global Urban Studies, American Studies, and Women's and Gender Studies. She holds a PhD in American Politics and MA in Comparative Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration from Cornell University. Her research and teaching interests include Asian American politics, race and ethnicity, critical urban studies, comparative immigration, gender and sexuality, cultural and media studies, and community rooted research. Her work has appeared in PS: Political Science & Politics, Urban Affairs Review, Women's Studies Quarterly, Amerasia Journal, Politics, Groups, and Identities, Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement, Journal of Asian American Studies, and a variety of edited book volumes, anthologies, podcasts, and exhibitions.

Diane is also a socially engaged artist, her multimedia exhibit "Archive as Memorial" is on display at Storefront for Ideas in Manhattan Chinatown and her group exhibit "Degentrification Archives" is currently on display at Pace University Gallery in New York City.

April 18, 2023

The African Diaspora Cluster presents the 4th annual M. Jacqui Alexander Lecture in African Diaspora Studies. Alexis Pauline Gumbs will be having a conversation with African and African American Studies Professor Shoniqua Roach.

The event will take place at 4 p.m. April 18 in Skyline Commons.

Alexis Pauline Gumbs is a Queer Black Feminist Love Evangelist and an aspirational cousin to all life. She is/they are the author of several books, most recently "Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals" and the co-founder of the Mobile Homecoming Trust, an intergenerational experiential living library of Black LBGTQ brilliance.

April 25, 2023

African and African American Studies Professor Wangui Muigai will be in conversation with Ndidiamaka Amutah-Onukagha from Tufts University, Hafeeza Anchrum from University of Pennsylvania, and Aishah Scott from Providence College. The event title, “Our Bodies, Our Voices, Our Choices” comes from an early publication of the National Black Women’s Health Project founded by Byllye Avery, and is meant to recognize and honor the contributions of Black women organizers and activists in the ongoing work of racial and reproductive justice.

This event will take place at 4 p.m. April 25 in the third-floor Reading room in Mandel Center.

Dr. Aishah Scott is a jointly appointed Assistant Professor of Black Studies and Health Science at Providence College. She is an advocate for social justice and closing gaps in healthcare for underrepresented communities. Her article "Erased by Respectability: The Intersections of AIDS, Race, and Gender in Black America" is in a recent issue of the Women, Gender, and
Families of Color journal. Additionally, she has been interviewed about the state of Black health in America by NPR, Marketplace, among others and given many talks about racial health disparities disproportionately impacting the Black community in the United States. Dr. Scott is working on her book manuscript entitled, "Respectability Can’t Save You: The AIDS Epidemic in Urban Black America." This work focuses on the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the African American community and the role of “respectability politics,” or moral policing, on state and community leaders from 1980-2010.

Dr. Ndidiamaka Amutah-Onukagha is the Julia A. Okoro Professor of Black Maternal Health in the
Department of Public Health and Community Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. Dr. Amutah-Onukagha is the Founder and Director of the Center of Black Maternal Health and Reproductive Justice (CBMHRJ), and of the Maternal Outcomes of Translational Health Equity Research (MOTHER) Lab. Dr. Amutah-Onukagha’s research investigates maternal health disparities, infant mortality, reproductive health and social justice, and HIV/AIDS as experienced by Black women. She also serves as the Assistant Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the university’s Public Health and Professional Degree Programs. A well-published author, Dr. Amutah-Onukagha’s research has been presented in over 61 manuscripts, 6 book chapters, a best-selling book on Amazon, and a textbook on culturally responsive evaluation. Her research has also been featured across a series of platforms, including, The Lancet, TedX, USA Today, and most recently broadcasted on MSNBC. She also serves on the editorial board for the Journal of Women’s Health Issues. Currently, Dr. Amutah-Onukagha is the Principal Investigator of two multi-year studies on maternal mortality and morbidity, an R01 funded by National Institutes of Health and an interdisciplinary grant on health equity funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Hafeeza Anchrum is a postdoctoral fellow in the Program on Race, Science, and Society at the University of Pennsylvania, where she co-manages the "Penn Medicine and the Afterlives of Slavery" project. This project investigates the historical connections between Penn’s Medical School and the institution of slavery, as well as the ongoing consequences of this connection in medicine today. Hafeeza’s program of research draws on the history of African American nurses to examine broader questions pertaining to race, gender, and American healthcare from the late 19th century to the present, with the aim to promote health equity. Hafeeza is in the process of transforming her dissertation project, "A New Era in the Fight for Nursing Civil Rights: Mercy- Douglass Hospital School of Nursing 1948–60," into a book manuscript. It builds on her earlier research to argue that integration, although beneficial for Black nurses' professional interests, also facilitated the dissolution of a long-standing bond and social contract of reciprocity between Black nurses and their communities.

October 19, 2022

5 p.m.

P**** Valley, Part 2: a black genders and sexualities studies conversation moderated by Professors:

• Shoniqua Roach
• Julian Glover (Virginia Commonweath University)
• Tiffany Lethabo King (University of Virginia)
• L.J. Stallings (Georgetown University)
• Omise'eke Tinsley (University of California — Santa Barbara)

April 7, 2022

4:30 p.m.

Rapaporte Treasure Hall, Goldfarb Library

M. Jacqui Alexander Lecture in African Diaspora Studies Featuring University Professor Anita Hill

Presented by the African Diaspora Cluster.

The African Diaspora Cluster, a AAAS initiative, brings together scholars who work on the African diaspora, broadly defined. The ADC curates an annual lecture named in honor of M. Jacqui Alexander, a pioneering theorist of transnational feminism and sexuality studies, whose work on the African diaspora has been profoundly influential. The lecture series seeks to highlight the innovative work of scholars at Brandeis and beyond, who are shedding new light on the manifold issues that animated Alexander's work.

Thank you to our generous co-sponsors:

• African and African American Studies

• Heller School

• Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences

• Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

February 10, 2022

4 p.m. ET

Skyline Commons

Racial Order and Social Progress: Anti-African Religious Racism in Brazil 
Presented by MHR Visiting Professor Rachel Cantave

"Religious racism" is the preferred terminology of Afro-Brazilian activists and religious devotees to describe the increasing acts of violence and discrimination targeting African-derived religions. This presentation will explore the usefulness of the term in enhancing our understanding of how racism is structured and articulated, particularly in Brazil, the so-called "racial democracy."

October 13, 2021

1 p.m. ET

Please join the African Diaspora Cluster for a Virtual Book Launch, celebrating the release of Siri Suh's new work, "Dying to Count: Post-Abortion Care and Global Reproductive Health Politics in Senegal." We will be joined by the author and an illustrious panel of experts in the field:

• Althea Anderson, PhD, MPH (panelist) — Program Officer in Gender Equity and Governance at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

• Ellen Foley (panelist) — Professor of International Development and Social Change at Clark University

• Lynn Morgan (panelist) — Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Mount Holyoke College

• Carina Ray (moderator) — Associate Professor of African and African American Studies at Brandeis University.

Siri Suh is assistant professor of sociology and an affiliated faculty member in the African and African American Studies Department at Brandeis University.

More on Dying to Count: Post-Abortion Care and Global Reproductive Health Politics in Senegal

Presented by the African Diaspora Cluster

May 11, 2021

4-5:30 p.m. EDT

Alumni College 2021

While Black feminism is frequently imagined as the paradigmatic ideological, political, and everyday practice through which social justice might be achieved, justice is often figured and treated as dangerous, problematic and risky in the hands of Black women. Professors Hortense Spillers, PhD ’74, an American literary critic, Black feminist scholar and the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor at Vanderbilt University, and Shoniqua Roach, Assistant Professor of African and African American Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies will explore this paradox, among others, through an intimate conversation about past, present and future possibilities for Black Women, Black Feminism and Justice.

This event is co-sponsored by the Alumni of Color Network and the Department of African and African American Studies.

March 17, 2021

A panel event to launch "Black Privacy," the special issue of The Black Scholar, co-edited by Professors Samantha Pinto and Shoniqua Roach.

March 22, 2021

Please join us for a conversation on race and health with the award-winning journalist Linda Villarosa, contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine and former editor for the New York Times and Essence Magazine. Professor Wangui Muigai (AAAS/HIS) will moderate. Questions for Linda Villarosa may be submitted ahead of the event to aaas@brandeis.edu

April 6, 2021

Noon ET via Zoom

Please join us for the 2nd Annual M. Jacqui Alexander Lecture in African Diaspora Studies. This year we welcome Professor Ben Talton of Temple University delivering a talk entitled"Black Power, Human Rights and Humanitarianism in Africa and the U.S."

Thank you to our co-sponsors:

• African Diaspora Cluster

• AAAS

• HIS

• IGS

• POL

• Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences

September 15, 2020

5:30 p.m. via Zoom

The Intercultural Center and AAAS presented Black Lives Matter 2.0, a discussion facilitated by Prof. Chad Williams.

November 13, 2020

11:30 a.m.

Prof. Russell Rickford, Cornell University, delivered the 35th annual Ruth First Memorial Lecture.

Sponsored by AAAS, Ruth First Lecture Fund

March 5, 2020

4 p.m. in Skyline Commons

African Diaspora Cluster Inaugural Lecture: "After the Dance: Performing Sovereignty After the Future" by Prof. Faith Smith

Co-sponsors: ADC, AAAS, DAS

March 11, 2020

3:30 p.m. in Rapaporte Treasure Hall

Prof. Megan Ming Francis, Visiting Associate Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Washington

Co-sponsors: AAAS, HIS, POL

March 16, 2020

POSTPONED

3:30 p.m. in Rapaporte Treasure Hall

Prof. Nitasha Sharma, Northwestern University

Co-sponsors: AAAS, AAPIS, WGS

April 23, 2020

POSTPONED

Time: TBD at Heller School

Sankofa Community Conference: "Co-Constructing Racial Justice through Life and Work"

Co-sponsors: AAAS, Heller

March 28, 2019

4 p.m. at Mandel Center for the Humanities, G03

Dorothy Roberts is the 14th Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor and George A. Weiss University Professor of Law & Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. An internationally recognized scholar and social justice advocate, she has been a leader in transforming public thinking and policy on reproductive health, child welfare, and bioethics. She is the author of the award-winning books, "Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty" (1997), "Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare" (2002), and most recently, "Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the 21st Century" (2011).

Watch the Video

February 1, 2019

2-5 p.m. at Rose Museum

Join us for the opening celebration of Howardena Pindell: What Remains To Be Seen exhibition. Howardena Pindell explores the intersection of art and activism. "What Remains to be Seen" spans the New York–based artist’s five-decades-long career, featuring early figurative paintings, pure abstraction, and conceptual works, as well as personal and political art. Feb. 1-May 19, 2019.

February 8, 2019

Join us as we mark a half century of excellence in and dedication to the Department of African and African-American Studies.

• Schedule of Events

• Speakers

• Register

March 21, 2019

4-5:30 p.m. in Sherman Function Hall

Join us for the award ceremony and presentation of the 2019 Richman Fellow Anna Deavere "Snapshots: Protraits of a World in Transition." Playwright, actor and educator Anna Deavere Smith uses her singular brand of theatre to explore issues of community, character, and diversity in America. The MacArthur Foundation honored Smith with the “Genius” Fellowship for creating “a new form of theatre — a blend of theatrical art, social commentary, journalism, and intimate reverie.”

October 11, 2018

Join us for an acoustic performance by Aurelio Martinez on October 11th in the Mandel Reading Room. Born in the tiny coastal hamlet of Plaplaya on Honduras' Caribbean coast in 1969, Aurelio Martinez represents perhaps the last generation to grow up steeped in Garifuna tradition. Now, over the thirty years into his remarkable career, he has risen to become the foremost global ambassador of Garifuna music and culture, as well as their most influential and respected guardian. This event is sponsored by Latin American and Latino Studies, African and African-American studies, the Intercultural Center, Office of the Dean of the Arts and the Office of Student Activities.

November 7, 2018

The Department of African and African American studies presents 20 years of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill: A Conversation with Joan Morgan in Rapaporte Treasure Hall on Wednesday, November 7, 2018 at 3:30 pm. Joan Morgan is an award-winning cultural critic, feminist author and a pioneering hip-hop journalist. Morgan coined the term "hip-hop feminist" in 1999, when she published the groundbreaking book, When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: A Hip-Hop Feminist Breaks it Down which is taught at universities globally. Regarded internationally as an expert on the topics of hip-hop, race, and gender, Morgan has made numerous television and radio appearances. She has been a Visiting Scholar at the New School, Vanderbilt, Duke and Stanford University and is currently a doctoral candidate at New York University. Her most recent book is She Begat This: 20 Years of the Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Jamaican-born and South Bronx bred, Morgan is a proud Native New Yorker.

November 29, 2018

Join us at 7 p.m. for popcorn and a screening of "Talking Black in America," a television documentary detailing the unique linguistic circumstances of the descendants of American slaves and their incredible impact on American life and language.

Location: Intercultural Center, Swig Hall

Co-Sponsors: Linguistics Program, ICC

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