The Black Studies Colloquium (BSC) provides a space for interdisciplinary discussion and the development of scholarship for all faculty interested in Black Studies across  Baruch College. Our events series provide a forum for faculty to engage with exciting scholars, activists, and public intellectuals whose works speak to issues critical to Black Studies. We support Baruch faculty lectures and works-in-progress discussions, writing workshops, and professional development opportunities and exchanges.

To see recordings select past events, and go to our archive page.

Baruch faculty interested in workshopping material, proposing readings, or other related events should email the directors of the Black Studies Colloquium, Rojo Robles and Keisha Allan

Co-Directors of the Black Studies Colloquium 2023-2024

Rojo Robles (Black and Latino Studies, Weissman School of Arts and Sciences)

rojo.roblesmejias@baruch.cuny.edu

Dr. Rojo Robles is a writer, filmmaker, and professor born and raised in Puerto Rico.  His interdisciplinary research interests are at the intersection between Latin American and Caribbean Literature and Film and Afro-Latinx Sound and Cultural Studies. He has been researching and writing about Caribbean Black films, and cinegraphic literature in Latin America and is developing a book project on Black Diasporican maroon poetics. He has published articles in SX Salon| Small Axe Project, The Puerto Rico Review, Revista Cruce, and Revista Iberoamericana and has been a cultural critic at 80grados.net for more than a decade.

Keisha Allan (Black and Latino Studies, Weissman School of Arts and Sciences)

keisha.allan@baruch.cuny.edu

Dr. Keisha Allan is an assistant professor in the Department of Black & Latinx Studies at Baruch College. Her research focuses on twentieth-century Caribbean literature. Within this field, she examines Caribbean literature by women writers who critique social and political inequities in their societies. She examines how selected female authors from the Caribbean create fictional worlds that have the effect of subverting patriarchal perspectives and paradigms in their postcolonial societies. She interrogates society and artistic responsibility, with women presented as creatively engaged in revolutionary activities aimed at reshaping ideas and perspectives in the national imaginary. She has published sections of her research in peer-reviewed journals such as The Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy and The Fight & The Fiddle of the Furious Flower Poetry Center at James Madison University. Her current research project examines how Caribbean women writers propose alternative conceptions of marronage by foregrounding the freedom-making tactics of women in post-colonial societies shaped variously by French, Spanish, and British colonialism.

As an advocate for community building, Dr. Allan has worked with community organizations founded by Anglophone Caribbean people who work with Caribbean and Central American students to expand knowledge by considering how issues of diversity and inclusion are discussed in various parts of the Caribbean and Latin America. In coordination with local community organizations, she has created avenues for productive global outreach to Caribbean and Latin American communities.

Rojo Robles (Black and Latino Studies, Weissman School of Arts and Sciences)

rojo.roblesmejias@baruch.cuny.edu

Dr. Rojo Robles is a writer, filmmaker, and professor born and raised in Puerto Rico.  His interdisciplinary research interests are located at the intersection between Latin American and Caribbean Literature and Film and Afro-Latinx Sound and Cultural Studies. He has been researching and writing about Caribbean Black films, cinegraphic literature in Latin America and is developing a book project on Afro-Boricua expansive poetics. He has published articles in SX Salon| Small Axe Project, The Puerto Rico Review, Revista Cruce, Revista Iberoamericana and has been a cultural critic at 80grados.net for more than a decade.

Angie Beeman (Marxe School of Public and International Affairs)

Angie.Beeman@Baruch.cuny.edu

Dr. Angie Beeman’s research examines how racism and anti-blackness evolve and are reproduced within institutions and progressive organizations, in particular. She addresses how organizations can build more equitable environments as well as the challenges diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives pose for Black faculty and faculty of color. she has published several articles in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes and is writing a book entitled “Liberal White Supremacy: The Role of Progressives in Silencing Racial and Class Oppression.”

Dr. Zachariah Mampilly is the Co-Founder of the Program on African Social Research which works to promote junior scholars based at African institutions. His work focuses on violent and non-violent movements in Africa and South Asia. He is the author of Rebel Rulers: Insurgent Governance and Civilian Life during War  (Cornell U. Press 2011) and with Adam Branch, Africa Uprising: Popular Protest and Political Change (African Arguments, Zed Press 2015).  He is the co-editor of Rebel Governance in Civil Wars  (Cambridge U. Press 2015) with Ana Arjona and Nelson Kasfir; and Peacemaking: From Practice to Theory (Praeger 2011) with Andrea Bartoli and Susan Allen Nan.