Archive
africana
“Brown Sugar Makes the World Go ‘Round”: A Conversation with Kim F. Hall on The Sweet Taste of Empire
Oct 6, 2025
Lucyle Hook Professor of English and Africana Studies Kim F. Hall’s new book, The Sweet Taste of Empire: Sugar, Mastery and Pleasure in the Anglo Caribbean (The University of Pennsylvania Press, August 2025), centers the complicated history of sugar in order to ask what lies beyond its narrative of pleasure. Hall explores how the unique […]
Read MoreSaul Williams on Black Experimentation, Fugitive Pedagogies, and the Art of Resistance
Saul Williams and Shana L. Redmond
Poet, musician, filmmaker, actor and intellectual Saul Williams discusses the relationships between aesthetic forms and political education in conversation with Dr. Shana Redmond, Director of the Center for the Study of Social Difference. Reflecting on practices of Black experimentation—in language, music, and film—this dialogue explores the various sites of enclosure and foreclosure, from the nation state to the university, that bear upon the present and what practices are necessary to enact more just futures.
Read MoreMilisuthando: Intimacy, Race, and Belonging in Apartheid South Africa
Milisuthando Bongela and Amelia Herbert
MILISUTHANDO is a deeply intimate portrait of filmmaker, writer and poet Milisuthando Bongela’s youth in South Africa. The self-titled documentary explores love, friendship and belonging in a South Africa stratified by racism, proving that only if we understand its tentacles, can we begin to extricate ourselves from its clutches.
Read MoreThe Sweet Taste of Empire: Sugar, Mastery, and Pleasure in the Anglo Caribbean
Kim F. Hall, Patricia A. Matthew, Debapriya Sarkar, Kyla Wazana Tompkins, and Jennifer Morgan; moderated by Tapiwa Gambura
Lucyle Hook Professor of English and Africana Studies Kim Hall’s new book The Sweet Taste of Empire: Sugar, Mastery and Pleasure in the Anglo Caribbean (The University of Pennsylvania Press, August 2025) centers the complicated history of sugar in order to ask what lies beyond its narrative of pleasure.
Read MoreBlack Feminist Ethnographies in Latin America and the Caribbean
Darlène Dubuisson, Prisca Gayles, Amelia Simone Herbert, and Maricarmen Hernandez
Join us for an engaging joint-book discussion with Professors Darlène Dubuisson (University of California - Berkeley) and Prisca Gayles (University of Nevada - Reno) as they explore the intersecting themes of their recent books, Reclaiming Haiti’s Futures and Pain into Purpose.
Read MoreHortense Spillers – Shades of Intimacy: Women in the Time of Revolution
Full length lecture.
Read MoreIn the Wake: A Salon in Honor of Christina Sharpe
Christina Sharpe in conversation with Hazel Carby, Kaiama Glover, Saidiya Hartman, Arthur Jafa, and Alex Weheliye.
Read MoreDreams are Colder than Death: Screening & Talk with Arthur Jafa
Featuring Arthur Jafa, Christina Sharpe, Tourmaline, and Tavia Nyong'o.
Read MoreWhen Sugar Hill Was Sweet: A Centennial Celebration of 409 & 555 Edgecombe Avenue
Multiple speakers
A Centennial Celebration of 409 and 555 Edgecombe Avenue A Day of Performances and Panel Discussions at Barnard College 10:30 AM – 6:30 PM PANEL: Of the Cloth: Theologians, Ministers, and Christian Capitalists Speakers: William Seraile, Ph.D., Reverend LaKeesha Walrond, Ph.D. From Daddy Grace’s enormous property holdings, including ownership of 555 Edgecombe Avenue, to the […]
Read MoreGloria Joseph and Naomi Jackson: Caribbean Feminisms on the Page
A conversation with Gloria Joseph and Naomi Jackson. Moderated by Kaiama L. Glover.
Read MoreSustaining Harlem: Art, Community Activism and Black Women’s Leadership
Panel discussion featuring Patricia Cruz, Thelma Golden, Virginia Johnson and Sade Lythcott, moderated by Tina Campt at The Scholar & Feminist 41: Sustainabilities.
Read MoreFILM SCREENING: I Remember Harlem: Parts I and II
Juanita Howard
As the opening event to its Harlem Semester Initiative, Barnard’s Africana Studies department will screen filmmaker and Harlem legend Bill Miles’ celebrated film “I Remember Harlem, Parts I and II” with producer Junaita Howard on Friday, January 29th at 6pm. A Harlem resident his entire life, Miles grew up on 126th Street, behind the Apollo […]
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