Emerging Scholars Conference

AFRICANA STUDIES PROGRAM AT GETTYSBURG COLLEGE &
THE CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA CONSORTIUM present
THE 5TH EMERGING SCHOLARS IN AFRICANA STUDIES CONFERENCE

Exploring Black Ecologies & Black Geographies

This conference is an excellent opportunity for students to engage in conversations with Africana Studies scholars who are conducting fascinating research in Black Ecologies and Black Geographies, domestically and internationally.  We also invite students to consider their own role in shaping the future of the discipline, the academy, and the world.

March 2, 2024

9:00 am – 2:00pm

CUB 260  -   Gettysburg College

Attendees are invited to roundtable discussions with invited scholars, focusing on key dialogues in the Africana Studies and approaches to shaping the future of the discipline, the academy, and the world.

PANEL I  9:10-1025

headshot of Dr. Benjamin Barson
Benjamin Barson
Cornell University
Sowing Freedom: Abolitionist Agroecology and Afro-Louisianan Brass Bands
headshot of Dr. Teona Williams
Dr. Teona Williams
Rutgers University
Divine Retribution: A Black Ecological Approach to Storm Riding
headshot of Dr. Samuel Boateng
Dr. Samuel Boateng
University of Pittsburgh
The Music and Activism of Nii Noi Nortey: Mapping the Sonic Geographies of Pan-Africanism and Africa’s Modernity

PANEL II  10:35-11:50

headshot of Dr. Amani Morrison
Dr. Amani Morrison
Georgetown University
Black Geographies and the Kitchenettes of Great Migration Chicago
headshot of Elise Quinn
Elise Quinn, ABD
Penn State University
A critical Genealogy of State-Mediated Black Reparations in the U.S.
headshot of Dr. Jayson Maurice Porter
Dr. Jayson Maurice Porter
Brown University
Oilseed Archives: Reading Afro-Mexican Landscapes in Plants and Power

LUNCHTIME DISCUSSION  12-1PM

headshot of Dr. Jerome Clarke ’17
Moderator: Dr. Jerome Clarke ’17
American University
Acting Assistant Professor Philosophy and Religion

Past Events

March 2021

The 4th Emerging Scholars in Africana Studies Conference 

Attendees are invited to a series of roundtable discussions with invited scholars, focusing on key dialogues in Africana Studies and approaches to shaping the future of the discipline, the academy, and the world.

Panel A Mining the past

9:00am-10:15am

Moderated by Hakim Mohandas Amani Williams
Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Peace and Justice Studies

Afterlives of the Plantation: Labor, Aesthetics, and Diaspora in the Global Black South
Jarvis McInnis
Cordelia and William Laverack Family Assistant Professor of English, Duke University

Illuminating the Invisible: African Descendants in 19th Century Mexican History
Beau Gaitors
Assistant Professor of History, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville

A Nice, Integrated Town: A New Jersey Suburb’s Use of Pro-Integration Strategies as a Form of Neighborhood Defense
Nichole Nelson,
Mellon/ACLS Public Fellow & Public Analyst, New Jersey Institute for Social Justice

Panel B Contemporary Black Urbanisms

10:30am-11:45am

Moderated by Ty Redden
Assistant Professor of Africana Studies

The Camera is My Weapon: Police Violence, Racialized Emotions, and Protective Monitoring
Brandon Alston
Ford Pre-Doctoral Fellow with the National Academies of Science, Northwestern University

Afro-Caribbean Women Teachers: Race, Transnational Labor, and Decolonial Diasporic Resistance
Kimberly Williams-Brown
Assistant Professor of Education and Africana Studies, Vassar College

BlackSpace Urbanist Collective
Sophonie Milande Joseph
 Visual Artist & planner

Panel C Cultural Aesthetics

1:15pm – 2:30pm

Moderated by McKinley E. Melton
Associate Professor of English and Africana Studies

Black Environmental Imaginations
Carlyn Ferrari,
Assistant Professor of English, Seattle University

We want the funk!: Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly and The Sounds of Black Los Angeles
Sequoia Maner
Assistant Professor of English, Spelman College

Black Imagination & Global Community
Natasha Marin
Conceptual Artist, Published Poet, and Activist, Seattle, WA

This event is co-sponsored by The Central Pennsylvania Consortium and Africana Studies Program at Gettysburg College

February 2017

The 3rd Emerging Scholars in Africana Studies Conference 

30 Years of AFS - Looking back, looking forward

Conference attendees are invited to participate in dialogues aimed at broadening their understanding of the field of Africana Studies. They are encouraged to engage with emerging scholars whose work highlights the interdisciplinary nature of Africana Studies, while also illuminating central concerns of the field. Moreover, attendees will be empowered to consider how their own work and developing research agendas can lay the foundation for the future of Africana Studies. This conference is an excellent opportunity for students to engage in conversations with young scholars conducting fascinating research domestically and internationally. Moreover, the conference serves as a call to students to consider their own role in shaping the future of the discipline, the academy, and the world.

Session I  AFS and Citizenship: Interrogating Borders, Space, and Identity
9:00am-10:30am
Moderated by Hakim M. A. Williams
Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and Education

Spaces of Un/Belonging: Gender and Faith in Tivoli Gardens
Kijan Bloomfield  Department of Religion, Princeton University

Relationships, Reciprocity, Refusal: Reflections on black cultural values and identities in qualitative research
Brooke Harris Garad Department of Teaching and Learning, The Ohio State University

In-Discipline: Roadblocks and Legality in Zimbabwe
Kathryn Takabvirwa Department of Anthropology, Stanford University

Session II AFS and Activism: Examining Global Movements for Social Justice
10:30am-12pm

Moderated by Chipo Dendere
Derrick K. Gondwe Scholar and Visiting Assistant Professor of Africana Studies

Black Geographies in Democratic South Africa
Yousuf Al-Bulushi Department of Peace Studies, Goucher College

Reconfiguring Race: Activism, Citizenship, and Sickle Cell Disease in Brazil
Melissa S. Creary School of Public Health, University of Michigan

African Spring? Emerging Social Movements in Sub-Saharan Africa
Chloe McGrath The Atlantic Council’s Africa Center, Washington, D.C.

Session III AFS and the Arts: Considering Images, Narratives, and Cultural Expressions
1:15pm- 2:45pm
Moderated by McKinley Melton
Assistant Professor of English and Africana Studies

4 Hours in the Middle of a Ferguson Street’: Blackness and Patience
Julius B. Fleming, Jr. Department of English, University of Maryland, College Park

Gravitational Pull: Errant Trajectories of the Afrofuturist and Black Atlantic Canons
Mark Lomanno Affiliate Faculty, Dept. of Cultures, Societies, & Global Studies, Northeastern University

New Directions in Black Women’s Visual History
Kelli Morgan  Winston and Carolyn Lowe Curatorial Fellow, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA

This event is co-sponsored by the Central Pennsylvania Consortium, The Consortium for Faculty Diversity at Liberal Arts Colleges, the Office of Multicultural Engagement, the Departments of Art & Art History, Political Science, Interdisciplinary Studies, and Latin American, Caribbean, & Latino Studies, and the Sunderman Conservatory of Music

October 2014

The 2nd Emerging Scholars in Africana Studies Conference 

 Invited scholars will participate in a series of roundtable discussions, focusing on Africana

artistic and literary expression, histories of political activism, and the role of Africana Studies

in global contexts. Attendees are invited to participate in dialogues around Africana Studies,

and approaches to shaping the future of the discipline, the academy, and the world.

Session I Representation and Expression

 9:00am-10:30am

Moderated by McKinley E. Melton

Assistant Professor of English and Africana Studies

Splashes of Color: A Contemporary Take on Diversity/Inclusion in the Arts

Bukky Gbadagesin Assistant Professor. of Fine and Performing Arts, Saint Louis University

Literary Proxemics and the Intimate Distances of Black Womanhood in Caryl Phillips’s Dancing in the Dark

Shauna Morgan Kirlew  Assistant Professor of English, Howard University

Envisioning Heritage: An exploration of identity, culture, and nationality

Beth Naomi Lewis  Frederick Douglass Scholar, Bloomsburg University

The fallacy of linguistic prejudice: Rethinking the linguistic ‘gospel’ we’ve all been socialized to believe

Hiram Smith Assistant Professor of Spanish and Hispanic Linguistics, Bucknell University

Session II The Politics of Space and Identity

 10:30am-12pm

Moderated by Hakim Williams

Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and Education 

Exploring Maternal Depression in the Caribbean: Researching Difficult Topics in the Black Diaspora

Fatimah Jackson-Best  Public Health Researcher/Consultant University of the West Indies

Aquí No Hay Desarollo: The Case of Low-Income Women Workers of African Descent in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Cruz Caridad Bueno Assistant Professor of Economics, Siena College

Not our work: Collective agricultural labor and the impositions of aid in rural Haiti

Scott Freeman Visiting Scholar, George Washington University

They won’t even admit the knife is there’: Colorblindness as Colonial Discourse

Marzia Milazzo Assistant Professor of English, Vanderbilt University


Session III Self-Determination and Africana Activism

1:15pm- 2:45pm

Moderated by Christina Jackson

Derrick K. Gondwe Scholar and Visiting Assistant Professor of Africana Studies

#BlackTwitter: Signifyin(g) Practice, Digital Activism, and the Protest of the Post-Racial

Frederick Staidum CFD Postdoctoral Fellow in English and Africana Studies, Birmingham Museum of Art

Sisters Fighting Back: The Legacy of Women and Self-Defense in the Black Panther Party

Mary Phillips Assistant Professor of African and African American Studies, Lehman College, CUNY


After the Marching Stopped: Head Start and the African American Freedom Struggle in Mississippi

Crystal Sanders Assistant Professor of History & African American Studies, Pennsylvania State University

Insurrectional Knowledge: The Anti-Prison Africana Pedagogy of Assata Shakur, Safiya Bukhari, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Russell Maroon Shoatz

Chris Tinson Assistant Professor. of African American Studies, Hampshire College

This event is sponsored by the Office of the President; The Consortium for Faculty Diversity at Liberal Arts Colleges; Schmucker Art Gallery; IDS; English; Sociology; The Eisenhower Institute