News & Events

News & Events


  • Why White People Are Called ‘Caucasian’ (Illustrated)

    October 30, 2013

    Nell Painter will present the Jefferson lecture on November 7, 2013, entitled: "Why White People Are Called 'Caucasian' (Illustrated)." The lecture is free and open to the public. No tickets are required. About Nell Painter Nell Painter is currently a painter (formerly known as the historian Nell Irvin Painter). She is the author of The History of White People and six other books and is the Edwards Professor of American History, Emerita, at Princeton University. A recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies, among many others, she is a former president of the Organization of American Historians…

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  • Cynthia McLeod: The Cost of Sugar

    October 30, 2013

    The Cost of Sugar In her presentation, UC Regents' lecturer Cynthia McLeod takes us back to the 18th-century Caribbean plantation colony Suriname. She presents Surinamese society through the eyes of two Jewish sisters, Elza and Sarith, descendants of the settlers of the "New Jerusalem of the River," known today as the Jodensavanne, the oldest Jewish settlement in Suriname which boasts the first synagogue in the Western hemisphere. The Cost of Sugar is a frank exposé of life in the Dutch slave colony when sugar ruled as kind - and the tragic toll it took on the lives of colonists and…

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  • Akinyele Omowale Umoja: “We Will Shoot Back”

    October 29, 2013

    In We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement, Akinyele Omowale Umoja argues that armed resistance was critical to the efficacy of the southern freedom struggle and the dismantling of segregation and Black disenfranchisement. Intimidation and fear were central to the system of oppression in Mississippi and most of the Deep South. To overcome the system of segregation, Black people had to overcome fear to present a significant challenge to White domination. Armed self-defense was a major tool of survival in allowing some Black southern communities to maintain their integrity and existence in the face of White supremacist…

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  • Analyzing police encounters with the public: Some methods for reducing the use of force

    October 23, 2013

    Geoffrey Raymond and Nikki Jones, Department of Sociology, UC Santa Barbara Kristin Precoda, SRI International Abstract: This talk reports some initial findings from an ongoing, large-scale observational study of policing practices in two major cities. Using a large database of video recordings of police-civilian encounters (drawn from two sources, dash mounted cameras in patrol cars and video recordings made by researchers) and research methods that have enhanced the delivery of healthcare (by improving communication between doctors and patients, see Mangione-Smith, et al., 2004; Heritage, et al., 2010) this project has three main goals: (i) to understand and describe basic aspects…

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  • Chiyuma Elliott—Langston Hughes and the Long Reach of the Blues Stanza

    October 18, 2013

    In the 1920s, Langston Hughes invented a new poetic form, the blues stanza, which enabled him to embody the continuing presence of the black countryside in the modern city. In his 1926 essay “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” Hughes asserted the importance of creating a distinctively black poetics out of working-class life. The blues—and the blues stanza—were a central part of that project. Both Hughes’s blues poems and the form itself continue to be hugely influential in contemporary African American poetry and poetics. This talk explores that long reach—through a discussion of Natasha Trethewey’s hybrid blues poems, recent…

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  • 30 Years Later

    October 9, 2013

                30 YEARS LATER On October 19, 1983, the 4-year-old Grenadian revolution, the only Black revolution in the English speaking Western world, was effectively halted by an internal coup followed six days later by an American military invasion.The United Nations General Assembly condemned the invasion. The ostensible reason for the incursion carried out under President Ronald Reagan, was to stabilize the country and save American students studying at an American offshore medical school in Grenada. The Reagan administration had been hostile to the revolution from its inception. Reagan’s expressed fear was that Cuba (helping Grenada build…

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  • VèVè Clark Institute Recruitment Event

    October 9, 2013

    The VèVè Clark Institute for Engaged Scholars in African American Studies will hold a recruiting event on Thursday, October 24 from 4-6pm in Barrows 652. We hope to bring in freshman and sophomore majors or intended majors to enjoy a lovely dinner and hear from our current scholars and faculty mentors about the benefits and rewards of becoming involved.

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  • New book by UC Berkeley African American Studies Lecturer Dr. Rickey Vincent

    September 26, 2013

    The new book by UC Berkeley African American Studies Lecturer Dr. Rickey Vincent is coming out on October 1st.   (It is available on amazon.com now, from Lawrence Hill Books) “PARTY MUSIC: The Inside Story of the Black Panthers Band and How Black Power Transformed Soul Music” is a groundbreaking first hand account of the Black Panther Party’s foray into Rhythm and Blues, as well as an analytical treatment of the intersection between Soul Music and Black Consciousness.   Here is an interview/discussion of the book with Davey D on KPFA: http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/95603   PARTY MUSIC reviews   From Publishers Weekly: Party Music:…

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  • Congratulations Aya de Leon

    September 13, 2013

    It is with great pleasure that we share with you that Aya de Leon has been appointed as a Continuing Lecturer in African American Studies.  Join us in congratulating Aya on this accomplishment.

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  • 21st Anniversary St. Clair Drake Symposium

    April 30, 2013

    BLACK FOLK HERE AND THERE: EXPLORING THE LIFE & HISTORY OF THEN & NOW

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