Now accepting nominations: Edwards DEI Award
The Erin Victoria Edwards Award for Leadership Excellence in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion will be given to College of Communication seniors and graduate students who are outstanding leaders in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) at Boston University, the College of Communication, and in the community. Erin Victoria Edwards is a former student of Boston University […]
Summer 2023 AFAMBDS Courses
Summer 1: CAS AA 313: The Politics and Policy of HBO’s The Wire—Shauna Shames Tues/Thurs, 9:00 am – 12:30 pm HBO’s television series The Wire is used to explore politics and policy. A number of interdisciplinary topics are covered, including the war on drugs; urban policing and education policy; and race, politics, and poverty. Effective […]
Watch: Gayl Jones Symposium, “Then You Don’t Want Me”
Now online: a keynote dialogue from the first-ever symposium dedicated to the work of Gayl Jones, “Then You Don’t Want Me”: Canonizing Gayl Jones! This video features Drs. Crystal Wilkinson and Alexis Pauline Gumbs discussing the creative influence and impact of Gayl Jones. Wilkinson and Gumbs highlight Jones’ storytelling techniques, the use of first-person perspective, […]
Read: Dr. John Thornton discusses Florida’s rejection of AP African American Studies Course
Dr. John Thornton’s opinion piece, POV: Florida Rejects AP African American Studies Course—Who Pays the Price?, was recently published in BU Today. The initial curriculum of the AP African American Studies course, which is a college-level course taught to high school students for college credit, included many of the topics included in our Program’s courses, […]
Upcoming Book by Dr. Louis Chude-Sokei
Dr. Louis Chude-Sokei, professor & director of African American & Black Diaspora Studies and professor of English, will release a new book in 2025. A nonfiction book, Machines of Flesh and Blood: How Race Made Technology (forthcoming 2025, Viking) will explore “the synchronous evolution of blackness and artificial intelligence.” Read more in this article by […]
Books, Films, Albums, and Podcasts to read this #BlackHistorySeason
BU Today sourced recommendations from our faculty and staff on what to watch, read, and listen to this February in honor of Black History Month (or as we like to call it, #BlackHistorySeason). Read all of their suggestions in the article: Celebrate Black History Month with These Books, Films, Albums, and Podcasts
Upcoming Event: The 2023 Silas Peirce Lecture
On Beethoven, Blackness, and Belonging: Debating German Music Across the Black Atlantic Kira Thurman (Associate professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures and History, University of Michigan) Date & Time: February 13, 2023 at 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM Location: Tsai Performance Center, 685 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA 02215 Co-sponsored by BU CAS, BU CFA, and BU Arts Initiative. […]
Upcoming Event: Screening of “Autumn Beat” with Director Antonio Dikele Distefano
Screening of “Autumn Beat” with Director Antonio Dikele Distefano Friday, February 24 at 6 PM Pre-release screening and live Q&A for his new Amazon Prime film Autumn Beat, the first Italian film with young Afro-Italian protagonists: Tito has a stutter and Paco dreams of becoming a famous rapper in an evermore multi-ethnic Italy. Co-sponsored by Romance […]
Research of Drs. Heywood & Thornton in Netflix series by Jada Pickett Smith
Premiering February 15th, Netflix’s new series Queens of Africa: Njinga “traces the rise and reign of Queen Njinga of Angola amid family betrayal and political rivalries.” Created by Jada Pickett Smith, this series follows a show on Cleopatra from last year. The film is based on Dr. Linda Heywood’s book Njinga of Angola: Africa’s Warrior Queen. […]
Spring 2023 Course Spotlight: CAS HI 290 B1: Warfare in Africa
CAS HI 290 B1: Warfare in Africa with Professor John Thornton MWF 11:15 am – 12:05 pm Explores antiquity, the Slave Trade, Imperialism, and Insurgency. How Africans have waged war through history, beginning with ancient Egypt and proceeding through the course of the building of states and Empires, to the military culture that underlay the […]