Lectures and Events

Presentation on the history of classical Arabic scripts like Thuluth and Naskh. Students will have a chance to practice Arabic letter art with reed pens during the workshop.

Come out to our Professor-Student mixer to network within the program, learn about Africana Studies courses, and build and engage with the community! Food and beverages will be provided.

Film Professor Mia Mask examines the African American Western hero within the larger context of film history by considering how Black westerns evolved.

Campus community only, please.

Learn about the ways in which interlocking systems of oppression impact the lives of individuals navigating them. Reception to follow. This event will be livestreamed.

Campus community only, please.

In this Concert entitled Wajd—the ecstatic, blissful state induced by poetry and music—the Tarab Ensemble will perform selections of the Arabic Sufi repertoire.

Chelle Barbour’s multidisciplinary art practice reimagines the body of the Black female through the lens of Afro-Surrealism. Barbour’s morning talk will be followed by an evening reception.

Dr. James R. Jones, Director of the Center on Politics and Race in America at Rutgers University–Newark, will discuss how white supremacy diffuses from Congress through law, politics, and everyday social life.

A Matthew Vassar Lecture, panel discussion, and workshops by syndicated Black cartoonist and children’s book illustrator Jerry Craft, who will discuss his graphic novel New Kid—and how the text has been weaponized and banned from some libraries and classrooms across the country.

A lecture by Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Associate Professor of English Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.

In search of a more inclusive history, public historian and community activist Sam Collins III will share how he has worked to “fill in the gaps” in our shared story. His scholarship spans U.S. and Mexican history as well as the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The talk is co-sponsored by the Poughkeepsie community organization Celebrating the African Spirit, whose co-chair Carmen McGill will introduce the speaker.