University of Wisconsin–Madison

Year: 2019

A Tribute To Professor Teju Olaniyan

For Tejumola Olaniyan: Scholar, Teacher, Mentor, Father. Note: This is a very long post. In my moment of grief, I take solace in writing this reflection to process my confusion and sadness. Thank you to everyone who has checked on me. Thanks for your messages, calls, and responses to my first desperate Facebook post. The …

Sophisticated Giant: The Life and Legacy of Dexter Gordon

Last week the Department of Afro-American Studies co-sponsored a residency by Maxine Gordon who discussed her book, Sophisticated Giant: The Life and Legacy of Dexter Gordon with Professor Ethelene Whitmire accompanied by music from the University of Wisconsin students in the UW Blue Note Ensemble. “Photos courtesy of Amadou Kromah/The Capital City Hues

Madwomen on the Slave Ship

Madwomen on the Slave Ship : reproduction and racial capitalism Presented by Jennifer L. Morgan Wednesday, November 13th 4:00-6:00 pm Pyle Center, ATT Lounge In this talk, Jennifer Morgan explores the capture and transport of African women in the transatlantic Slave trade, arguing that they are key to understanding the development of early modern racial …

African Americans In Europe: London, Copenhagen, and Paris

Next Wednesday, October 16th, Afro-American Studies Professor Ethelene Whitmire will be on a panel about African Americans in Europe: London, Copenhagen, and Paris in Chicago at the School of the Arts Institute of Chicago. “African Americans have been traveling to and living in Europe since and before the end of slavery, right up to the present. Perhaps most famously noted in the writings of James Baldwin. Join us for a discussion of some of the varied aspects of this long and wonderfully complex story.”

The Department of Afro-American Studies welcomes 2 new faculty members.

Brittney Michelle Edmonds is an interdisciplinary scholar of 20th and 21st Century African American literature and culture. She researches and specializes in the study of black critical humor after 1968. Her scholarship and her courses highlight how otherwise modes of being, feeling, speaking, and writing defamiliarize and destabilize hegemonic productions of race, gender, sexuality, and …

Thulani Davis Receives Vilas Faculty Early Career Investigator Award From The Chancellor

  Congratulations! Thulani Davis received a Vilas Faculty Early Career Investigator Award. Through the generosity of the Vilas Trust, the Office of the Provost is able to provide the Vilas Faculty Early Investigator Awards to recognize research and teaching excellence in faculty who are relatively early in their careers. (pictured is Thulani Davis receiving her …