Lectures and Events

The Africana Studies Program offers lecture and other programming funds. If you’re planning an event, fill out and return the Programming Funds Request Form.

Events

Post-Beydoun/Stern Dialogue with an image of Professor Kimberly Williams Brown and Restorative Practices Director Amanda Munroe.

Join Amanda Munroe, Director of Restorative Practices, and Professor Kimberly Williams Brown, Director of Engaged Pluralism, in one of our intergroup dialogue sessions following Khaled Beydoun and Ken Stern's moderated discussion.

Campus community only, please.

Headshot of Brahim El Guabli.

Brahim El Guabli, Associate Professor of Arabic at Williams College, recenters TAMAZGHA—the ancestral Amazigh homeland extending from the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean to the oasis of Siwa in West Egypt—as a transformative geography helping to reconnect North and sub-Saharan Africa to each other.

Campus community only, please.

Photo portrait of Ryan Jobson.

Ryan Jobson, Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of Anthropology at The University of Chicago, examines how the rise and fall of the oil industry impacts post-colonial nationalist visions of the future in Trinidad and Tobago. Jobson asks us to consider if there can be a viable political and economic future for Trinidad and Tobago without oil, a question that should be relevant to us all living in a fossil fuel based global economy.

Past Events

Post-Beydoun/Stern Dialogue with an image of Professor Kimberly Williams Brown and Restorative Practices Director Amanda Munroe.

Join Amanda Munroe, Director of Restorative Practices, and Professor Kimberly Williams Brown, Director of Engaged Pluralism, in one of our intergroup dialogue sessions following Khaled Beydoun and Ken Stern's moderated discussion.

Campus community only, please.

Pictured: Khaled Beydoun. Portrait of a person in a blue suit and tie.
Apr. 10, 2025, 9:30 a.m.

Join scholar Khaled Beydoun for a small group discussion. Breakfast will be served.

Campus community only, please.

Pictured: Ken Stern. Portrait of a person with a beard and glasses standing outside with trees in the background.
Apr. 10, 2025, 12:00 p.m.

Join scholar Ken Stern for a small group discussion on antisemitism and hate. Lunch will be served. RSVP is required.

Campus community only, please.

Associate Professor of Law, Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, Arizona State University Khaled Beydoun and Director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate, legal scholar Ken Stern will engage in a moderated dialogue with Associate Professor of Religion Kirsten Wesselhoeft about Islamophobia, antisemitism, free speech/expression and hate. This event is open to the public. Vassar attendees will need to show their ID. Non-Vassar attendees will need to register.

Exterior photo of Rockefeller Hall - a red brick building with tan accent with some trees around the building.bricks and trim, a dark colored roof, and 2 green turrets

Vassar Randolph Fellow Professor Sa'ed Atshan will moderate this panel with Swarthmore College Professor Tariq al-Jamil and University of Michigan Professor Su'ad Abdul Khabeer on the diverse experiences of Black Americans. They will reflect on questions around race and faith, Blackness, cultural production, political consciousness, and civic engagement among African American Muslims. The panel will be followed by an Iftar and this is open to the entire Vassar community, all are welcome! Please RSVP.

Campus community only, please.

Person smiling wearing a green no sleeve top with white spots and curly dark hair pinned up and a tree in the background.

Nicole Holliday, Acting Associate Professor of Linguistics at UC Berkeley, will present her latest research on how tone-detection systems and digital voice assistants like Siri and Alexa reinforce linguistic and racial bias.

This event is open to the public.

headshot.

Elijah Anderson, Sterling Professor of Sociology and African American Studies at Yale University and one of the nation’s leading urban ethnographers, discusses his book The Cosmopolitan Canopy: Race and Civility in Everyday Life. Open to the public.

Person wearing a white long sleeve shirt, long teal scarf, necklace with large teal stone, large round gold earrings with long dark curly hair.

Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs, the first researcher to explore the full depths of Audre Lorde’s manuscript archives, will give a talk on her new book, Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde. Open to the public.