Black Studies and the Shifting Winds of our Nation: Strategies for Advancing the Discipline

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Description for Program

In recent years and the foreseeable future, the political climate of our country is shifting against supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, and centering Black history and culture in K-12 and even university curricula. This is illustrated by book banning movements and state government mandates to suppress or exclude Black Studies in states such as Florida, Texas, Georgia, and others. Such movements are also compounded by the larger trends of students moving away from the humanities towards business and STEM fields, leading to decreases in enrollments and majors for humanities and humanistic social science fields and disciplines, including Black Studies departments and programs. Essentially, Black Studies is at a critical crossroads with significant implications for its future.

This roundtable brings together Chairs of Black Studies/Africana Studies/Afro-American Studies from departments across the country to ask: How can Black Studies departments prepare for and combat current and future attacks on the discipline from both within and outside of the academy? What strategies have successful Black Studies departments used to increase or maintain their major numbers? Should Black Studies units reimagine themselves for the future, and if so, how? How can Black Studies units act collectively to share strategies and address challenges? This roundtable will serve as a forum for chairs and others in attendance to discuss the future of Black Studies in our complex world.

The scholars on this roundtable are chairs of departments of Afro-American Studies/African American and African Studies/African and African-American Studies/African and African Diaspora Studies/African American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, the University of Virginia, Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Kansas, the University of Texas at Austin and Saint Louis University, respectively.

Sub Unit

• ASWAD

Chair

• Yolanda Covington-Ward

Presenters

• Robert Trent Vinson

• Shanti Parikh

• Shawn Leigh Alexander

• Cherise Smith, University of Texas, Austin

• CHRISTOPHER TINSON, Saint Louis University

• Riché J. Daniel Barnes, University of Florida