Af Am Department
Harvard Faculty Sign Open Letter Calling for Trump’s Impeachment
Twelve Harvard faculty joined more than 300 American historians and legal scholars in signing an open letter calling for President Donald J. Trump to be impeached for the second time in his presidential term.
Anthropology Prof. John Comaroff Placed on Administrative Leave Following Allegations of Sexual Harassment
Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Claudine Gay placed Anthropology and African and African-American Studies professor John L. Comaroff on paid administrative leave Monday afternoon following allegations that he sexually harassed students and retaliated against those who spoke out against him.
Jeff Sessions Appears to Refer to Renowned Black Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. as ‘Some Criminal’ in New York Times Interview
Former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions appeared to refer to prominent Black Harvard professor Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, Jr. as “some criminal” in an interview for a New York Times story published Tuesday.
Graduate Students Protest Potential Police Partnerships at African and African American Studies Meeting
Tensions flared in Harvard’s African and African American Studies Department this week after a professor proposed a forum to discuss potential partnerships with local police departments.
Anthropology, African and African-American Studies Students Call for ‘Transformative Change’ in Petition to Department Heads
Students distributed a petition Monday outlining steps toward “radical, truly transformative change” to department structures they say facilitated abuse, beginning with the removal of three faculty accused of sexual misconduct.
Harvard, University of Michigan Professors Discuss the COVID-19 Pandemic’s Effect on Prisons
Heather Ann Thompson, a Pulitzer prize-winning author and University of Michigan professor, discussed the relationship between pandemics and prisons in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic during a virtual event on Thursday.
Queen Latifah, Rita Dove, and Robert Smith Receive Annual W. E. B. Du Bois Medal
In addition to Latifah, Dove, and Smith this year’s recipients include co-founder of Black Entertainment Television Sheila C. Johnson; Andrew W. Mellon Foundation president Elizabeth Alexander; artist Kerry James Marshall; and Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution Lonnie G. Bunch III.
Annual Gala Honors Black Women at Harvard
The Black Men’s Forum honored History and African and African American studies Professor Elizabeth Hinton at its 25th annual Celebration of Black Womxn gala.
Martin Kilson, First Tenured African American Professor at Harvard, Dies at 88
Government Professor Emeritus Martin L. Kilson, Jr., the first African American to receive full tenure at Harvard, died in hospice on April 24 of congestive heart failure at the age of 88.
Incarcerated Youth Visit Harvard to Explore Career, Educational Options After Release
A handful of incarcerated youth traveled around Harvard's campus Thursday to learn about possible professional and educational paths they could pursue after their release from prison.
Rebuilding African and African American Studies
Over the course of the nineties, Harvard’s Afro-American Studies department put itself on the map primarily by increasing faculty recruitment.
McCarthy Hired as English, African and African American Studies Assistant Prof
"Jesse McCarthy stood out unequivocally as the hottest new star on the horizon,” the Chair of the African and African American Studies wrote of the new hire.
Edouard Duval-Carrié
Edouard Duval-Carrié, a Haitian-born American painter, gives a talk about his art for the Hutchins Center’s Fall Colloquium at the Barker Center Wednesday afternoon.
Ava DuVernay, LL Cool J Receive Du Bois Medal
LL Cool J read a post from his Instagram account that honored victims of Sunday’s shooting in Las Vegas.
LL Cool J, Ava DuVernay to Receive Du Bois Medal
Harvard will honor rapper and actor LL Cool J, filmmaker Ava DuVernay, and several others with the W.E.B. Du Bois Medal next month.
Professors on Committee Examining Slavery Plan Conference
“We need to engage this, not just to be better historians,” Beckert said of Harvard's ties to slavery. “We need to acknowledge this history as a way to be able to move forward.”
Ethnic Studies Advocates Call for a Department, Research Center
A group of undergraduates and graduate students are circulating a petition among students, staff, and alumni that calls for the formation of an ethnic studies department and research center.
Hutchins Funds $10 Million to Study Inequality Among Boston's Black Residents
The Hutchins Center for African and African American Research received $10 million for a new study of inequality experienced by African and African American residents in Boston’s poorer neighborhoods.
Stephen L. Carter Examines Effects of Law on Race
Yale Law professor Stephen L. Carter examined on Wednesday the invisible consequences of law on African-Americans in the second of three lectures of the W.E.B. DuBois Lecture Series on “Blackness and the Legal Imagination.”
Stephen L. Carter Argues Slavery’s Effects on the Law
Yale Law School Professor Stephen L. Carter argued the relevance of slavery in the United States by addressing its impact on the law in the first installment of his W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture Series on Tuesday.
Glenda R. Carpio
In her current work on immigrant literature, Carpio is interested in when “America fails the person or when the person can’t cope with the difficulties of becoming someone else."
Brandon M. Terry
Now teaching at his alma mater just 15 years later—though “it feels longer every year,” he quips—Terry sees his role as a responsibility to push students outside of their comfort zones.
Gates in the 1960s
“Dubois Professor of the Humanities Henry Louis Gates Jr. was the featured speaker at a service in honor of Martin Luther King."
Building a Field of Dreams: Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the Afro-American Studies Department
When Department Chair Nathan I. Huggins died in December of 1989, it looked like the end of Afro-American Studies at Harvard.