News

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.

Literature & Culture: Black Speculative Futures, (AL,DU  -  4 credits)

Instructor: Andrew Brooks

History of the Civil Rights Movement

(HS,DU  -  4 credits)

Instructor: Makhai Pells

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

The HFA departments of Afro-American Studies and Music & Dance, as well as the Fine Arts Center, will collaborate to present concerts and presentations in October 2024 in celebration of the 100th birthday of Max Roach, legendary jazz drummer, activist, and one of the first jazz musicians to teach full-time at the college level right here at UMass Amherst.

The Max Roach Centennial Celebration will feature current faculty and students as well as visiting scholars, artists, and alumni.

WEBINAR: Vice President Kamala Harris & Black Women’s Politics in the 2024 Presidential Election

Du Bois Department Faculty Awarded National Endowment for the Humanities Grant!: A research team consisting of Prof. Toussaint Losier (PI), Prof. Yemisi Jimoh (Co-PI), Prof. Covington-Ward (Co-PI), and Prof. Keisha Green (K-12 Educator, Assoc. Professor in the College of Education) has been awarded a competitive grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to host a Teacher's Institute during summer, 2025. The Souls of Black Folk and the Foundations of African American Studies is a new, Level 1 Institute designed to support teachers grade 9-12 with an expressed interest in preparing to