Africana Studies Conference highlights current issues and historical perspectives

Students and scholars from Bowling Green State University and other universities will gather Feb. 8 for the 21st annual Emerging Perspectives in Africana Studies Student Research Conference and Luncheon. Hosted by BGSU’s Africana Studies program, the daylong event includes undergraduate and graduate students represented by seven universities and 16 disciplines presenting their original research during morning and afternoon panels.

The conference will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the Lenhart Grand Ballroom at the Bowen-Thompson Student Union.

The keynote address will be given during the noon luncheon by Dr. Tara T. Green, the Linda Carlisle Excellence Professor of Women's and Gender Studies and former director of African American and African Diaspora Studies at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.

Green’s lecture, "This Is Our Story: Reclaiming the Middle Passage, Resisting Social Death," will be based on her 2018 book, “Reimagining the Middle Passage: Black Resistance in Literature, Television, and Song,” which provides an interdisciplinary perspective on African descendants’ resistance to social death during the Middle Passage and in spaces symbolic of the Middle Passage, the trade route in which millions of enslaved Africans were transported by European ships across the Atlantic to the New World.

Admission to the keynote address without the meal is free. Registration for the luncheon is due by Feb. 4. A choice of entrees is available. To register for the luncheon or for more information, call 419-372-8514. 

The conference is supported by the School of Art, the departments of art history, English, history, theatre and film, world languages and cultures, School of Cultural and Critical Studies, International Studies, Asian Studies, Arts Village, Global Village, the Center for Undergraduate Research and Scholarship, Office of Student Affairs and the College of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Rebecca Skinner Green is director of the Africana Studies Program at BGSU and an associate professor of art history.

Guests with disabilities are requested to contact Accessibility Services at access@bgsu.edu or 419-372-8495 in advance to indicate if any special services, assistance or appropriate modifications are needed to fully participate in the event.