Welcome to the official website for the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at UMass Amherst. The Department is an intellectual, professional, and social community that stands at the forefront of global education and research on people of African descent in the United States and the world. Please browse the site to learn more about who we are and what we do behind the doors of New Africa House on the UMass flagship campus and beyond. (Photo by Ed Cohen)
Black Women and the Arts in the 21st Century
View video here (click on flyer)
See photos on facebook!
March 10th, 2014 7:00 -9:30 p.m.
Mullins Center, UMass Amherst
AMHERST, Mass. – An event featuring three prominent African-American artists — Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison, singer and social activist Bernice Johnson Reagon and poet and playwright Sonia Sanchez.
“Hendrix: Red, Black, & Blues - A Program Confronting Stereotypes in African and Native Music”
When: 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m., Wednesday April 23, 2014
Where: Campus Center Auditorium, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Widely acclaimed as an innovative instrumentalist and songwriter, Jimi Hendrix was also one of the most prominent Afro-Native Americans of the twentieth century. Highly conscious of his Native roots, Hendrix’s Cherokee heritage deeply influenced his lyrics and musical stylings. “Red, Black, & Blues: A Program Confronting Stereotypes in African and Native American Music” will bring to the fore this often-overlooked aspect of the late guitarist and composer.
Featured on the program is internationally renowned musician and songwriter Martha Redbone who will give a talk on Indigenous and African American musical intersections. Also on the program is Native American Drum ensemble Urban Thunder and acclaimed Native American Poet and professor of American Studies Ron Welburn who will be on hand to read several of his works. Scholar-Musicians Jon Hill (Anthropology) and Donald Geesling (Afro-American Studies) will offer remarks, bringing their academic expertise to bear on various cultural intersections that informed Hendrix’s music and life experiences.
These talks will be complemented by a live performance of Hendrix songs that will exemplify the ways in which Afro-Native influences impacted the famed guitarist’s musical imagination. The evening’s featured band is anchored by several members of the New Africa House Ensemble - drummer Bob Sommer, guitarist Jon Hill, and keyboardist Donald Geesling - and rounded out by Pioneer Valley favorites Dave Picchi on bass, and Kevin Sharpe on lead vocals.
The event is sponsored by The W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies, the Center for Student Development, The Josephine White Eagle Cultural Center, the UMass English Department, CMASS, and The W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies Graduate Student Association.
For more information, contact either Jon Hill at jhill@anthro.umass.edu or Donald Geesling at dgeeslin@afroam.umass.edu
Alex Carter, Ph.D. candidate, celebrates at the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies 50th
anniversary.
Two UMass AfroAm affiliates win fellowships in the newly inaugurated Mellon Program in African American History at the Library Company, Philadelphia!
Kabria Baumgartner, UMass Afro Am alumnus and Assistant Professor of History at the College of Wooster, Ohio won the Mellon Post Doctoral Fellowship in African American History
Doctoral student Emahunn Rahim Campbell has won the Mellon Dissertation Fellowship in African American History
*See facebook link for photos of “Black Women and the Arts in the 21st Century”event featuring Toni Morrison, Bernice Johnson Reagon and Sonia Sanchez.
Kelli Morgan, Ph.D. candidate, is the second Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow in African American Art at the Birmingham Museum of Art. She will begin her position in late May. Kelli's interests include nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty first-century African American Art, particularly representations of the Black female body in various contexts.
Kelli also received the Ford Foundation Fellowship for 2014-2015. She is the first one in our department to be awarded the fellowship.
Congratulations!
Thank you to Ph.D. student Kelli Morgan for her thoughts on
African American women's bodies in art, and their opportunities in the art
world through a biography of renowned artist Elizabeth Catlett.
This is the fifth in a series that pays tribute to Black History Month.
Read along with us! http://umasshistory.wordpress.com/
David Lucander (Ph.D. 2010) received tenure and was promoted to Assistant Professor at Rockland Community College in the Pluralism and Diversity Department. Look for his upcoming book, Winning the War for Democracy: The March on Washington Movement, 1941-1946 this fall on University of Illinois Press.
Christopher Lehman (Ph.D. 2002) quoted in NY Times!
Professor Manisha Sinha was invited to the Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Tuesday, March 11th, 2014. See link: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-march-11-2014/exclusive---the-weakest-lincoln?xrs=playershare_fb
Also, Professor Manisha Sinha's latest on "12 Years a Slave" in the NY Daily News: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/untold-history-beneath-12-years-article-1.1706946
National Council for Black Studies Presidential Award Given to Shabazz
Amilcar Shabazz, professor of Afro-American Studies and faculty advisor to the chancellor for diversity and excellence, has received the National Council for Black Studies’ Presidential Award, conferred at its 38th annual conference on March 8 in Miami. Click here for details.
New England Regional Student Program (NERP)
Afro-American Studies Majors Qualify from Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.
The NERP allows students from the six New England states, who are enrolled in certain programs not offered by their home-state public college or universities, to pay a reduced tuition rate. Not all programs are available in the NERP at UMass.
See the Registrar's Office for details.
Check out our Department News & Events Page for more....
On the evening of January 4, 2013 William Cronon, President of the American Historical Association, awarded the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies with the AHA's Institutional Equity Award for its training and placing of minority historians in the academy. Manisha Sinha, Graduate Program Director and the Jobs Placement Officer of the department for its History-Politics track accepted the award on behalf of the department.
Established over 40 years ago, the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is one of the oldest African American Studies departments in the country. In 1996, this department established a pioneering doctoral program in African American Studies, emphasizing solid disciplinary training in history. As one of the referees highlighted: "Not only was this doctoral program one of the first in the country but it has since its founding graduated a record number of minority students who have gone on to tenure track positions in history throughout the country." As one graduate of the department noted, "I learned how to think like a historian and how to be a historian in the academy....Not only did I receive great mentorship, but the graduate program also encouraged me to mentor others, including undergraduate students whom I taught."
This prize is given to recognize individuals and institutions that
have achieved excellence in recruiting and retaining underrepresented
racial and ethnic groups into the historical profession. The Department will be recognized
during the awards ceremony at the Annual Meeting in New Orleans.
You can find information on the AHA's web site, at www.historians.org/annual
The November 2012 newsletter of the Organization of American Historians has a brief article, accompanied by a pie chart, that begins as follows: "African American history topics were the most popular for the OAH Distinguished Lectureship Program during the 2011-2012,accounting for nearly a quarter of all lectures given." We are glad that there is such an interest in African American history. We also must acknowledge that the need for scholars in this field is not being met by the full time faculty at many of the institutions requesting guest lecturers. Our department will continue to do our part in producing first rate graduates who will be available as openings occur. Professors John Bracey, a Life Member of the OAH since 1964, and Manisha Sinha have served as Distinguished Lecturers for several years.
*Click on chart for pdf version.
Department Links:
College of Humanities & Fine Arts
Faculty Presentation Grants (CHFA)
ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Afro-Am Collections
Afro-Am Librarian-Isabel Espinal
The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Studies
Make a Gift to Afro-American Studies
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W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies
329 New Africa House
180 Infirmary Way, UMass Amherst
Amherst, MA 01003
Phone: (413) 545- 2751
Fax: (413) 545-0628
Upcoming Events
Black Note: A Senior Afro-American Studies Project in Jazz
Saturday, April 26th at 2 pm
Augusta Savage Art Gallery, New Africa House
"Hendrix: Red, Black,& Blues - A Program Confronting Stereotypes in
Native and African Music"
Featuring: Martha Redbone, Jon Hill, Donald Geesling, Caren Brendor,
Ron Welburn, and Special Guests
Wednesday, April 23 at 7:00 p.m.
Campus Center Auditorium
UMass Amherst