Our courses draw on literature, philosophy, history, and many other disciplines to examine African, African-American, and Caribbean/Latin American themes. We also study the social construction of racial differences and its relation to the perpetuation of racism and racial domination.

A Conversation With Derecka Purnell

Poster of a talk by Derecka Purnell
Sponsored by the departments of Black Studies, Environmental Studies and Political Science

October 3, 2023

Derecka Purnell is a human rights lawyer, writer and author of Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom. She works to end police and prison violence by providing legal assistance, research and training in community-based organizations through an abolitionist framework.

Video of “Becoming Abolitionists”
A group of people in a small room with a large table in the middle of the room

2023 Senior Reception & Commencement

Enjoy some photos from the 2023 Black Studies’ Senior Reception & Commencement ceremonies, which took place in May 2023.

Featured Article

An illustration of two Black women against an orange, green and blue rainbow

The BREHA Collective

The Black Feminist Reproductive Justice, Equity & HIV/AIDS Activism (BREHA) Collective is a new interdisciplinary lab that foregrounds the experiences, labor, and political visions of Afro-Diasporic girls, women, and gender-diverse people in our shared and divergent struggles against reproductive injustice.

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