From Berkley Street to (UC) Berkeley: Celebrating the Career of Stephen Small

Join the Department of African American Studies and the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues at UC Berkeley to celebrate Professor Stephen Small’s 30-year campus career. The retirement party will include a family-style lunch; panel discussions with and about Professor Small’s scholarship, teaching/mentorship, and contributions to campus administration; and a closing reception.

Please RSVP to attend:

• For our in-person program
• Or our Zoom webinar. Note: the Zoom webinar will only cover the 1:00 – 3:00 pm PT program. 

• 11:30 am – 12:30 pm: Lunch in 650 Social Sciences Building, the African American Studies Albert Johnson Conference Room
• 1:00 – 3:00 pm: Panel discussions in 820 Social Sciences Building, the Social Sciences Matrix 
• 3:00 – 4:00 pm: Reception and toasts in 650 Social Sciences Building, the African American Studies Albert Johnson Conference Room

Please add a note to our virtual KudoBoard/retirement card for Professor Small!

This event is co-organized and sponsored by the Department of African American Studies (AAS) and the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues (ISSI) at UC Berkeley.

If you require an accommodation for effective communication or information about accessibility to fully participate in this event, please contact Barbara Montano at bmontano14@berkeley.edu or 510-664-4324 with as much advance notice as possible.

Stephen Small, Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies (AAS) and Director of the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues (ISSI), is retiring in December 2024 after 30 years as a faculty member at UC Berkeley. Born and raised in Liverpool, England, Professor Small came to Berkeley in 1984 as a graduate student in Sociology, where he became a graduate student trainee at the Institute for the Study of Social Change, now ISSI. After completing his PhD in 1980, he briefly left Berkeley for teaching positions in the UK and at U-Mass Amherst, and then returned as a faculty member in AAS in 1995. Over the past 30 years, he has taught thousands of undergraduate students in courses like Race, Class and Gender; Social and Political Thought in the Diaspora; Qualitative Research Methods; People of Mixed Race; and Globalization and Minority Communities in the United States. He has taught more than 200 graduate students in courses including Theories of Race and Ethnicity, Qualitative Research Methods, the African Diaspora. In addition to other formal and informal mentoring roles for graduate students, he has chaired six dissertation committees and been a member of at least fifteen dissertation committees.

Professor Small has maintained an active research program organized around the social scientific analysis of contemporary racial formations, addressing links between historical structures and contemporary manifestations of racial formations in the United States and elsewhere in the African Diaspora. Axes of stratification shaped by gender/race intersections, and by class and nation are central to his work. He is author, co-author, or co-editor of eleven books. His most recent book is In the Shadows of the Big House: 21st Century Antebellum Slave Cabins and Heritage Tourism in Louisiana (University Press of Mississippi, 2023). His next book, Black Liverpool is the Real Thing: African and African Diaspora Culture at the End of the 20th Century, will be published by Liverpool University Press in 2025. His contributions to scholarship also include over 40 sole-authored articles and book chapters, in addition to many co-authored pieces.

Professor Small has served as a campus leader in numerous roles, with two notable examples being as Chair of AAS and Director of ISSI. The international scope of his scholarship is mirrored in a set of UC Berkeley leadership positions he took on related to promoting international research and study, especially for students. He served as Associate Director of the Institute of International Studies and led study abroad programs in Spain, France, Brazil, and Zimbabwe. His commitment to cross-national and global perspectives can also be seen in his role as a faculty member for the Black Europe Summer School since 2007, his frequent stints as a visiting faculty member around the world, and his mentorship of visiting graduate students and postdoctoral scholars here at Cal.
To his teaching, research, and leadership roles, he has brought his keen intelligence, deep commitment to social justice, a warm collaborative style, as well as a droll sense of humor. Fortunately for UC Berkeley and the academic community beyond Cal, Professor Small will become Professor of the Graduate School after his retirement, and in this new role, he will continue his research, mentorship of graduate students, and university and academic service.