This archive page features select recorded events hosted by the Black Studies Colloquium.
Amplifying Latinx Voices- Literature with Dr. Amina Gautier
Guest Scholar Professor Evelyn Simien Department of Political Science, (University of Connecticut) discusses her recent publication “Historic Firsts in U.S. Elections: Trailblazing Candidates in Gubernatorial, Congressional, and Mayoral Campaigns.” (December 2, 2021)
In this Baruch Black Studies Colloquium event, Professor Simien draws connections between this compelling anthology and her previous work on symbolic political empowerment in the context of America’s evolving political consciousness and activity as well as challenges and shifts in political science. This presentation is followed by a lively discussion among faculty and students moderated by Professor Angie Beeman in the Marxe School of Public and International Relations at Baruch College.
Professor Tshombe Miles (Black and Latino Studies Department, Weissman) Faculty Presentation: “The Fight Against Racial Capitalism: From Maroon Communities to the Haitian Revolution” (November 3, 2021)
This video recording features the work of Professor Tshombe Miles in the Black and Latino Studies Department at Baruch College on the Black Radical Tradition using examples from maroon communities to the Haitian Revolution. The talk focuses on the question of how these communities created spaces of economic development in the face of racial capitalism despite the explicit intent to destroy those communities. At approximately 49 mins into the presentation segues to a discussion moderated by Professor Rojo Robles in the Black and Latino Studies Department at Baruch College. Join us again for a follow-up event in February 2022, a screening of a documentary about maroon communities followed by a panel discussion with Professors Tshombe Miles, Rojo Robles, and Erica Richardson March 1 6:00pm )
Professor Zachariah Mampilly (Marxe School of Public and International Relations) Faculty Presentation: “Decolonizing The United States Lessons from Africa” (April 20, 2021)
Learn more about Zachariah Mamiplly’s work in the Program on African Social Research (PASR):
The Program on African Social Research (PASR) was founded to center African knowledge production within social science research globally. We do this by creating opportunities for junior scholars based in Africa. By providing access to international networks, we work to help junior scholars improve their research and create opportunities for mentoring and meaningful collaborative possibilities. https://www.pasiri.org
Presentation by Guest Scholar Dr. Juliet Hooker (Brown University): “Black and Indigenous Resistance to Racist Backlash Across the Americas” (March 11, 2021)
Link for description and purchase of full edited volume of Black and Indigenous Resistance in the Americas: From Multiculturalism to Racist Backlash (2020)
Black Futures Symposium: Black Ecologies
On October 13 and October 14 the Baruch Black Studies Colloquium hosted the inaugural Black Futures symposium, sponsored by the Baruch College Office of the Provost, CUNY’s Black, Race, and Ethnic Studies Initiative (BRESI), and Baruch College’s Black and Latino Studies Department. The theme for 2022 was “Black Ecologies.” This symposium featured presentations from activists and scholars discussing a range of interpretations of Black Ecologies as thought and practice emerging from the study of geography, social history, effects of climate change or disruptions in the social and natural world, and the ways Black people have created their own environments to protect themselves. Learn more about guest scholars and activists and check out the video recordings of presentations below!
Topics include:
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Land Displacement and Disputes
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Global Climate Justice
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African Technology and Innovation
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Equitable Disaster Recovery (relief for natural disasters like hurricanes, heatwaves, and water scarcity)
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Climate Migration
and more…
Schedule
Thursday 1:00 pm-2:30 pm (EST) October 13, 2022 Cristina Sturmer, activist, and researcher with Brazil’s Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), Landless Rural Workers Movement.
Cristina Sturmer is a researcher and activist of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) based in the Santa Maria Settlement in Paranacity, a municipality in the state of Paraná in the Southern Region of Brazil. Sturmer received her BA in Economic Sciences with training in Cooperativism and Development from the Federal
University of Fronteira Sul (UFFS) and her MA in Agroecology and Sustainable Rural Development from the same institution. She was a Substitute Professor in Economic Theory at UFFS Campus Laranjeiras do Sul, systematizing the Cantuquiriguaçu Agroecology Network through a project developed by the National Agroecology Articulation (ANA). She is also a member of the October 4th of the Emergency Brigade of Solidarity with the Mozambican people. Currently, she is on the board of the Vitória Agricultural Production Cooperative (COPAVI) and coordinates the FINAPOP project department, both linked to the MST. Projects developed in the area of Public Policies for Territorial Development, Agrarian Reform, Solidarity Economy, and Agroecology with emphasis on women’s groups, agro-industries, quilombola communities and Guarani indigenous people.
This session is will be moderated by Professor Rojo Robles, Black and Latino Studies, Baruch College.
Check out the video of Sturmer’s work on the fight for land and agrarian reform in Brazil (note the presentation is translated into English):
Click the following link to learn more about Brazil’s Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) or Landless Rural Workers Movement.
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Thursday 3:30pm -5:00 pm (EST) October 13, 2022, Colette Pichon Battle, Esq., activist and researcher with Taproot, a global climate justice organization.
Colette Pichon Battle is a generational native of Bayou Liberty, Louisiana. She founded the Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy and led the development of programming focused on equitable climate disaster recovery, global migration, community economic development, and energy democracy for more than 17 years in the Gulf South. Colette now serves as the Partner of Vision & Initiatives at Taproot Earth, a global climate justice organization working for a world where all people can live, rest and thrive in the places they love. She serves on the governance council of the Southern Movement Assembly, co-chairs the national Water Equity and Climate Resilient Caucus with PolicyLink, serves on the steering committee of the Ocean Justice Forum, and is a lead architect of the 5-state, multi-issue initiative Gulf South for a Green New Deal. Colette also helped to develop the 13-state Southern Communities for Green New Deal with the Southeast Climate & Energy Network and the Red, Black & Green New Deal, the national climate initiative with the Movement for Black Lives. In 2022, Colette received the William O. Douglas Award- recognizing individuals who have made outstanding use of the legal/judicial process to achieve environmental goals, particularly those with national significance. Her TED Talk on climate migration was ranked in the top 10 TED talks of 2020. And she was named a 2019 Obama Fellow for her work with Black and Native communities.
This presentation is moderated by Professor Erica Richardson, English, Baruch College.
The video presentation of this event is forthcoming
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Friday, 11:00 am-12:30 pm (EST) October 14, 2022, Nisrin Elamin, PhD, Anthropology Department, New College, the University of Toronto.
Nisrin Elamin received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Stanford University in 2020. Her doctoral research was an ethnographic examination of the ways Saudi and Emirati corporate investments in land reconfigured everyday social relations between landless and landholding stakeholders in central Sudan. Through support from the Social Science Research Council, Wenner-Gren, and the National Science Foundation she conducted research in local courts, farming communities, investor conferences, agribusiness farms, government ministries, and in the mosques of Sufi religious leaders mediating land disputes in the aftermath of large-scale land enclosures. Nisrin has published scholarly articles in Critical African Studies and the Project on Middle East Political Science Journal. She has also published a number of op-eds for Al Jazeera, Pambazuka News, Okay Africa, and the Cultural Anthropology Hot Spot Series.
This session is moderated by Professor Keisha Allan, Black and Latino Studies, Baruch College.
Check out the video presentation of Dr. Elamin’s work on land dispossession and corporate investment in Sudan:
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Friday, 1:00-2:30pm (EST) October 14, 2022, Chakanetsa Mavhunga, PhD, Science, Technology, and Society Department at MIT.
Chakanetsa Mavhunga is a full professor of Science, Technology, and Society at MIT. His latest book is entitled Knowledge in the Service of and through Problem-solving (out early 2023) and is the first in his Dare To Invent the Future trilogy to be published with MIT Press. His professional interests lie in the history, theory, and practice of science, technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship in the international context, with a focus on Africa. Prof. Mavhunga joined MIT as a tenure-track assistant professor in 2008 after completing his PhD at the University of Michigan. His previous books include Transient Workspaces: Technologies of Everyday Innovation in Zimbabwe (MIT Press, 2014), the edited volume entitled What Do Science, Technology, and Innovation Mean from Africa? and The Mobile Workshop: The Tsetse Fly and African Knowledge Production (MIT Press, 2018). He also convenes the Graduate Super-Seminar on Global South Cosmologies & Epistemologies alongside distinguished theorists from the Global South. He characterizes his work as knowledge in the service of and through problem-solving, wherein theory is a product of and informs an ethic of ‘responsibility to community,’ so that especially faculty and students from marginalized communities carry their communities’ priorities to shape what they do on campus while drawing the university to communities, to engage in learning-and-solving-at-the-intersection of multiple forms of knowing. Prof. Mavhunga will draw from this ongoing work in Zimbabwe and western Massachusetts for his talk.
This session is moderated by Professor Shelly Eversley, Chair of Black and Latino Studies, Baruch College.