Department of African American Studies

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Brian Davis - Old Main bell tower fall 2017

Life-changing text alert puts Penn State student on path to success

6/11/18

Brian Davis found out that he was accepted to Penn State while practicing parallel parking in his hometown of Philadelphia. This spring he graduated with a bachelor's degree in African-American studies, with minors in international studies, sociology, and civic and community engagement. “Penn State has impacted my life in so many ways,” he said.

David Leonard

Sawyer Seminar Series brings David J. Leonard to campus March 26

3/23/18

David J. Leonard, professor of critical culture, gender and race studies at Washington State University, will deliver a lecture titled “Playing While White: Power, Privilege and the Politics of Protest,” at 6 p.m. March 26 in 101 Chambers Building on Penn State's University Park campus.

Tommie Smith

Tommie Smith, Wyomia Tyus, Harry Edwards visiting Penn State on April 3

3/22/18

Olympic gold medalists Tommie Smith and Wyomia Tyus and noted sociologist and civil rights activist Harry Edwards will participate in a panel discussion titled “Sports Protest and Politics: Reflections on the 1968 Olympics” at 6 p.m. on April 3, in the Greg Sutliff Auditorium, which is located in the Lewis Katz Building on the University Park campus at Penn State.

Tony Buba (Sawyer Seminar Series)

Free screening of 'Ghosts of Amistad' to take place Feb. 8

1/30/18

“Ghosts of Amistad: In the Footsteps of Rebels” —a documentary created by Tony Buba based on the book “The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom” by Marcus Rediker — will be shown at 8 p.m. Feb. 8 at the State Theatre in State College. The screening and a Q&A session with Buba and Rediker are sponsored by the Penn State Department of African American Studies.

Bassem Youssef

Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef to speak at Penn State

10/13/17

Satirist Bassem Youssef, dubbed the “Jon Stewart of Egypt,” will visit University Park in November to speak at two separate events hosted by the Center for Global Studies. Youssef will deliver a lecture titled “The Joke is Mightier Than The Sword” at 4:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 3 at the Nittany Lion Inn. Then, on Saturday, Nov. 4, he, along with the film’s director Sara Taksler, a senior producer of "The Daily Show," will participate in a discussion following the film screening of "Tickling Giants."

Penn State receives $225,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

10/4/17

A team of Penn State faculty led by Cynthia Young, associate professor and head of the Penn State Department of African American Studies, has received a $225,000 charitable grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Sawyer Seminars program to examine racial disposability and cultures of resistance.

Dr. Margaret Burnham

Richards Center to host conference on violence in African-American history

9/21/17

The George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center, the Department of African American Studies, and University Libraries will host a conference, "Rethinking Violence in African-American History: History, Memory, Trauma," on Oct. 6 and 7. Free and open to the public, the conference will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Friday and 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday in Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library, Penn State, University Park.

NSF grant supports research into geospatial intelligence during civil rights era

7/18/17

During the civil rights movement, activist groups such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) used geography and geospatial intelligence to identify protest sites and to plan civil rights protests. A new $373,000 National Science Foundation grant is letting researchers dig into those geospatial tactics to see what can be learned about patterns of racial inequality and how the SNCC collected and leveraged geospatial intelligence data to bolster its activist efforts.

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