New Directions in African and African American Studies Conference

AAST Graduate Certificate Program to hold New Directions in African and African American Studies Conference on April 29 from 4 pm to 7:30 pm.

This conference brings together graduate students from a number of disciplines currently enrolled in the African and African American Studies Certificate Program and its core course—Graduate Readings in African and African American Studies—to consider the entangled global histories of Africa and its diaspora. 

Toward this end, questions of enslavement, fugitivity, colonialism, criminalization, mass incarceration, ideas of Blackness, the continuity and disruption of unfree labor regimes and activism remain essential to comprehending the full implications of Black existence within liberalism, abolitionism, nationalism, and various systems of racism. Through their presentations graduate students enrolled in the Graduate Certificate Program aim to explore, broaden, and challenge their discipline’s canonical views that rely upon a master narrative of whiteness and white supremacy.

This conference will feature panel presentations in which graduate student participants will offer brief comments contextualizing their pre-circulated papers followed by commentary and discussion. Upon registration audience members will have a chance to read pre-circulated papers beforehand. The event will end with a concluding keynote that will provide an assessment of ongoing conversations about the place of African and African American Studies in contemporary and future issues.

CONFERENCE PROGRAM

All panels will take place via Zoom. All times are Central Standard Time.

Register for Conference