News

Letícia Fernanda Carvalho Silva, a PhD student in the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies, has been awarded a competitive Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowship! She is the only UMass Amherst graduate student to receive this nationally competitive award this year. We are incredibly proud of Letícia and look forward to the wonderful dissertation that will result from the support from this fellowship. You make the Du Bois Department proud! 

https://www.acls.org/news/2025-mellon-acls-dissertation-innovation-fellows/

Prof. Covington-Ward

Congratulations to our Afro-Am Studies student major Charles Walker-Hoover for his recent recognition from the NAACP Youth and College Division. We are proud of you, Charles!  Charles participated in the 47th annual Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C.   He is honored to be selected by the NAACP Youth and College Division to assist in the recharter of the United States Students Association, where he received training on protesting, legal observation, and lobbying Congress.

Charles had the privilege of rallying on Capitol Hill to advocate for the continued existence of the Department of

Faculty Writing Workshop: Black Feminist Writing: A Practical Guide to Publishing Academic Books

Led by: Dr. Stephanie Evans, Professor of Black Women's Studies and former Director of the Institute for Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Georgia State University 

Interested in strategies for improving your academic writing process? Join us for a faculty writing workshop centered on the book Black Feminist Writing: A Practical Guide to Publishing Academic Books (SUNY Press, 2024)! The book will be provided for free to participants. Black Feminist Writing shows scholars how to prioritize

Graduate Student Writing Workshop: Black Feminist Writing: A Practical Guide to Publishing Academic Books

Led by: Dr. Stephanie Evans, Professor of Black Women's Studies and former Director of the Institute for Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Georgia State University 

Interested in strategies for improving your academic writing process? Join us for a graduate student writing workshop centered on the book Black Feminist Writing: A Practical Guide to Publishing Academic Books (SUNY Press, 2024)! The book will be provided for free to participants. Black Feminist Writing shows scholars

AFROAM 101. Introduction to Black Studies, 4 credits (I,DU)
Professor Torres
MW 2:30-3:45 pm
Interdisciplinary introduction to the basic concepts and literature in the disciplines covered by Black Studies. Includes history, the social sciences, and humanities as well as conceptual frameworks for investigation and analysis of Black history and culture.

AFROAM 101. Introduction to Black Studies, 4 credits (I,DU)
Professor Davis
MW 4:00-5:15 pm
Interdisciplinary introduction to the basic concepts and literature in the disciplines covered by Black Studies. Includes history, the social sciences

Congratulations to two of our W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies Ph.D. Students who are winners of the Terry Kershaw Graduate Student Essay contest through the National Council for Black Studies (NCBS):

1^st place winner, Jordon Crawford (advised by Professor Anne Kerth)

3^rd place winner: I'Maya Gibbs (advised by Professor Amilcar Shabazz)

Excited Delirium: Race, Police Violence, and the Invention of a Disease,

by Dr. Aisha Beliso-De Jesús 

The lecture explores the medicalization of police violence by examining the history and continued use of a fabricated medical disease known as "excited delirium," which has been used to justify the use of violence against mainly Black and Brown men. Beliso De Jesús also connects this made-up condition to the persecution of Africana Diaspora religions

Robert Paul Wolff, 91, professor emeritus in the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies and founding director of the Social Thought and Political Economy (STPEC) program, died Jan. 6 in Durham, North Carolina.

Panelists

Terri Lyne Carrington, Multiple Grammy Award-winning drummer, producer, and educator - Berklee School of Music

Guthrie Ramsey, Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor of Music - University of Pennsylvania

Sonia Sanchez, Poet, Activist, and Scholar

Royal Hartigan, Jazz Drummer

Moderated by Professors Amilcar Shabazz and James Smethurst