The Essence Theme Community traveled to Chicago this fall on a daylong field trip designed to offer students an artful and educational experience, coinciding with the Department of African American Studies’ ongoing work to transition Essence into a Learning Community. The visit also allowed students an opportunity to meet Dr. Jessica Lee Stovall, who will …
“Porcelain Dolls and Chocolate Dreams,” a new student-written and student-directed play by UW–Madison African American Studies alum DeOnna Garrison, brings a rare spotlight to Black experiences on predominantly white campuses, and the cast says the collaboration behind it is just as powerful as the performance. Jnae Thompson, cast member and African American Studies Class of …
Dr. Max Felker-Kantor joined the Department of African American Studies as an Associate Professor in fall 2025. Affiliated with the Department of History and the Department of Educational Policy Studies, Felker-Kantor’s scholarship focuses on policing, race, and urban politics in the United States. His first book, Policing Los Angeles: Race, Resistance, and the Rise of …
Percival Everett visited UW–Madison this November as part of the university’s Go Big Read program, which selected his Pulitzer Prize–winning novel James for the 2025–26 academic year. The novel reimagines Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Jim. During Everett’s time on campus, the Department of African American Studies and the Black Cultural Center …
Dr. Sabrina Thomas, a 20th-century historian, joined the Department of African American Studies in fall 2025. An affiliate of the Department of Gender & Women’s Studies and Department of History, her first book, Scars of War, explores how the United States repeatedly denied Amerasian children, or children of American fathers and Vietnamese mothers born during …
Dr. Christy Clark-Pujara’s forthcoming article for the Journal of the Early Republic, “Black Love and Joy: The Pleasure of Correspondence in early Wisconsin, 1850 – 1857”, explores the letters of Caroline Shepard, a free Black woman in southwest Wisconsin, and her aunt, Caroline Milford/Mason, writing from Virginia between 1850 and 1857. Despite 900 miles of …
Dr. Langston Collin Wilkins reflects on ten tracks that led him to pursue the field of Ethnomusicology Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young – “Ohio” (1973) My true introduction to the role, function and meaning of music was my 5th grade History Fair project on protest music. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young “Ohio” was a central …
Launching on Madison’s South Side in the 2026-2027 school year, The SoulFolk Saturday School will be a culturally grounded Saturday school for Black high school students in Madison, Wisconsin. Housed within the Center for Black Excellence and Culture and run by The SoulFolk Collective, a research lab in the Department of African American Studies at …
In her December 2024 Footsteps column, Dr. Ethelene Whitmire ruminates on 20th-century writer Nella Larsen, her semi-autobiographical character Helga Crane from the 1928 novel Quicksand, and time spent navigating Copenhagen. The New York Times’ Footsteps series traces landscapes that shaped major authors, and Whitmire had long imagined contributing to it after encountering Ellery Washington’s 2014 …
The Department of African American Studies gathered to mark its 55th anniversary this fall with a four-day symposium, examining the department’s evolution and enduring influence on scholarship and community-based engagement since its founding after the Black Student Strike of 1969. The symposium offered space to reflect on fifty-five years of teaching, research, and steadfast connections …