Departmentalize Now! The Imperative for African and African American Studies

Since 1968, Black Studies departments have been established across the country, contributing to the intellectual life of the university and informing larger conversations about race beyond the academy. However, departmentalization eludes many universities, including Stanford. In this Clayman Conversations online event, our panelists will discuss how departmentalization is both a political and feminist issue, and how the university legitimates certain knowledge through departmentalization. Additionally, our panelists will consider the symbiotic relationship between social movement participants and institutions of higher education.

About the Speakers

Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.

James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor; Chair, Department of African American Studies at Princeton University

Eddie S. Glaude Jr. is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor and chair of African American Studies at Princeton University.  He is the former president of the American Academy of Religion, the largest professional organization of scholars of religion in the world.  Glaude is the author of several important books including Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul, which has been described as “one of the most imaginative, daring books of the twenty-first century.”  His most recent book, Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own, was released on June 30, 2020.  Imani Perry describes the book as “precisely the witness we need for our treacherous times."   Glaude is also a columnist for Time magazine and a regular contributor on MSNBC.  He hails from Moss Point, Mississippi, a small town on the Gulf Coast, and is a graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.  

Kimberly Thomas McNair

Postdoctoral Fellow, African & African American Studies Program, Stanford University

Dr. Kimberly Thomas McNair is a Postdoctoral Fellow in African & African American Studies at Stanford University. She holds a Ph.D. in African American & African Diaspora Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. Kimberly is a historian and her research focuses on Black social movements, activist traditions, and expressive culture in the African Diaspora.  She has a manuscript in progress, and her work has appeared in The Drama Review and The Color of New Media Anthology #identity: Twitter and Diversity. Kimberly is currently co-editing “The 2020 Project,” a Special Issue Anthology on Covid-19 and Global Black Lives Matter Uprisings for Stanford University.

Aileen K. Robinson

Aileen K. Robinson is an Assistant Professor of Theater and Performance Studies and Faculty Fellow in AAAS at Stanford University.  As a historian of performance and science, she specializes in the history of technological innovation,  magic performance, and Black performance cultures.  Her book project, currently entitled Theatres of Revelation: Instruments of Performance in Nineteenth-Century Public Science, examines the intersections between technological, scientific, and theatrical knowledge in early science museums.  She has held fellowships from the SSRC (IDRF) and the NSF and is a graduate of Northwestern and Harvard Universities.

Fabio Rojas

Virginia L. Roberts Professor of Sociology at Indiana University, Bloomington

Fabio Rojas is the Virginia L. Roberts Professor of Sociology at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is also the co-editor of Contexts: Sociology for the Public, the official magazine of the American Sociological Association. His books include From Black Power to Black Studies: How a Radical Social Movement Became an Academic Discipline, Party in the Street: The Antiwar Movement and the Democratic Party after 9/11, and Theory for the Working Sociologist. His work has appeared in the American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, and the Academy of Management Journal.