The SoulFolk Collective W.E.B. Du Bois famously asked the question of the Black community: “How does it feel to be a problem?” Drawing inspiration from W.E.B. Du Bois’s seminal work, The Souls of Black Folk, the SoulFolk Collective (affectionately called “SoCo”) is a community of undergraduate and graduate researchers in the Department of African American …
Dr. Andrene Wright-Johnson joined the Department of African American Studies as an Anna Julia Cooper Postdoctoral Fellow in the fall of 2023 after completing an M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from Northwestern University. Now an Assistant Professor, she conducts research and hosts lectures on Black political engagement, mobilization, resistance, and radical imagination at the …
Bob Trondson on the impact of human stories As the founder of Cloud North Films, Bob Trondson brings a passion for history, literature, and a background in African American Studies to his work in documentary storytelling—producing short-form films, or micro-docs, for nonprofits, schools, and grassroots organizations. Trondson’s career began at Wisconsin PBS, where he directed …
In the wake of student activism, our department offered its first classes fifty-five years ago, in the fall of 1970. The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968 sparked a wave of student protests on college campuses across the country. Black students at the University of Wisconsin–Madison reacted by orchestrating a series of …
In partnership with The Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies, the department traveled with fifteen undergraduates to experience African American and Jewish culture in Harlem, Brooklyn, and the Lower East Side through food, museums, and walking tours this April The group kicked off their trip in Borough Park, a neighborhood in southwest Brooklyn. Borough Park is …
How UW–Madison professors work to collapse the town and gown divide and illustrate how history is ever affecting our present This spring, four UW–Madison professors continue to bring the Wisconsin Idea to life through their work with Justified Anger, a community-rooted initiative launched by The Nehemiah Center for Urban Leadership Development. The initiative began in …
Stephen Chandler’s academic journey is defined by a passion and a deep connection to Black education. What began as a theater scholarship evolved into a path shaped by discovery and purpose, ultimately leading him to a life in teaching, research, and community engagement. While pursuing a bachelor’s degree in psychology, Stephen took his first African …
UW–Madison students present research, art, and scholarship in the 1st Annual African American Studies Student Symposium The symposium featured student presentations spanning art, sociology, and current events. Eleven students delivered talks, and the event concluded with a theatrical performance of selected scenes from Joe Turner’s Come and Gone by three students. Adam Donahue, a History …
Oluwatosin Philip Adeyemi, a second-year master’s student, shares a synopsis of his thesis and inspirations Philip Adeyemi’s research in the African American studies field offers an intervention into how we engage with visual histories of racial violence. His master’s thesis examines the work of contemporary Black artists who reframe traditional lynching imagery, shifting focus from …
Dr. LaShawn Faith Washington on the cruciality of a Black feminist education “bell hooks urges us to transgress. She gives us an avenue to think about the academy in a non-white manner; hooks teaches us to de-center the heteronormative and patriarchal right-centered way of the academy,” says Dr. LaShawn Faith Washington, seated behind her desk …