Events

1/17-1/18: Death, Dying, Domination: Racism and the Ends of Life. An interdisciplinary workshop.

2/18: Senghor-Damas-Césaire Lecture by Shana Redmond, Professor of Musicology and African American Studies, UCLA; author most recently of Everything Man: The Form and Function of Paul Robeson (Duke, 2020). 7pm, Garey 10A, Co-Sponsored with Office of Music Activities

2/20, 4-5.30pm: Spotlight on Faculty Research: Discussion with Prof. Norman Ajari (Philosophy) of his book Dignity or Death? Ethics and Politics of Race and Prof. Etienne Achille (French) of his co-authored book Postcolonial Mythologies: Decolonization of Everyday Life. Falvey Memorial Library, Speakers Corner. Co-Sponsored with Falvey Library

4/14: "Ending Gender Violence: Africana Defiant Spirituality and Activism." Ida B. Wells Lecture by Traci West, Professor of Christian Ethics and African American Studies, Drew University; author most recently of Solidarity and Defiant Spirituality: Africana Lessons on Racism, Religion, and Ending Gender Violence (NYU, 2019). 7pm, Garey 10A.

3/10, 7pm: Lecture and Discussion with N. Fadeke Castor, Assistant Professor of Religion and Africana Studies at Northeastern. Author of Spiritual Citizenship: Transnational Pathways from Black Power to Ifá in Trinidad (Duke, 2017). Garey 10A.

9/26: Opening BBQ with music by The Urban Shamans, 4pm, Garey Courtyard

10/23: “African Sacred Worlds: A Conversation about Miracles, Healing, and Statecraft,” with David Amponsah (Assistant Professor of Africana Studies, Penn) and Angie Heo (Assistant Professor, University of Chicago Divinity School), noon-1:30pm

10/23: “Affirmation in the Dark: Racial Slavery and Philosophical Pessimism,” workshop with Jared Sexton, Professor of African American Studies, and of Film and Media Studies, University of California, Irvine. Jared Sexton’s books include Amalgamation Schemes: Antiblackness and the Critique of Multiracialism (Minnesota, 2008), Black Masculinity and the Cinema of Policing (Palgrave, 2017), and Black Men, Black Feminism (Palgrave, 2018). 3-5pm

11/12: “Black Metaphors: How Modern Racism Emerged from Medieval Race-Thinking,” a lecture by Cord Whitaker (Associate Professor of English, Wellesley College), with response by Villanova’s Maghan Keita, 7:30pm, Center for Engineering Education and Research 001. Co-sponsored with History, French, English, and the Lepage Center

11/20: What Is Black Catholicism? Lunch Discussion for Black Catholic History Month with Prof. Shannen Dee Williams (History), Prof. Katie Walker Grimes (Theology), and Brother Ernest Miller (VP of Mission, La Salle), Noon, St. Rita Community Room

2019 Senghor-Damas-Cesaire Lecture: Patrick Manning (video)

Patrick Manning, Ph.D., from the Department of History, University of Pittsburgh, presented a lecture entitled "Africana Studies in Africa and North America: Knowledge of Past and Present" in April 2019. 

"The Impossibility of Integration" (video)

Villanova University Sociologist and Africana Studies Program member Dr. Rory Kramer presented a lecture in March 2019.

 "New Growth: The Art and Texture of Black Hair after Emancipation" (video)

Jasmine Cobb, PhD, Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies, Duke University, presented a lecture in March 2019.

"Augustine, the African, and the African Church" (video)

A panel discussion featuring Dr. Mel Webb (University of Texas, San Antonio), Catherine Conybeare (BrynMawr), and Shannen Dee Williams (Villanova). October 2018.

2018 Ida B. Wells Lecture: Reiland Rabaka (video)

"The Souls of Black Radical Folk: W. E. B. Du Bois and the State of Africana Studies." April 2018.

"Black Panther and African Cosmopolitanism" (video)

A lecture by Jonathan W. Gray, Department of English, John Jay College / CUNY, the editor of The Journal of Comics and Culture and the author of Civil Rights in the White Literary Imagination (University Press of Mississippi, 2013). Gray has published on Modernism, the Harlem Renaissance, the graphic novel, and questions of Black masculinity and popular culture. His journalism on comics and popular culture has appeared at EW.com, Salon.com, and The New Inquiry. Dr. Gray’s current project for Columbia University Press is Illustrating the Race: Representing Blackness in American Comics. March 2018.

2017 Damas-Senghor-Cesaire Lecture: Zakes Mda (video)

 "Intertextuality and the Creative Process." Zakes Mda is a multiple award-winning Southern African and Appalachian American-African writer, painter, and music composer. Author of 22 books- 10 of them novels - which have been translated into 20 different languages, Mda is Professor Emeritus of English at Ohio University and Extraordinary Professor of English at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. November 2017.  

2017 Ida B. Wells Lecture: Evelyn Simien (video)

 "Affect and Collective Action: Civil Rights and Lessons Learned." Dr. Evelyn Simien, Department of Political Science, University of Connecticut. Author of Black Feminist Voices in Politics (SUNY Press, 2006), Gender and Lynching: the Politics of Memory (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2011), and Historic Firsts: How Symbolic Empowerment Changes U.S. Politics (Oxford University Press, 2015). April 2017.  

Langston Hughes 115th Birthday Bash (video)

An evening of public readings of works by one of the finest artists of the Harlem Renaissance. Wednesday February 1, 2017, 4:30 pm, Falvey Memorial Speaker’s Corner. Co-Sponsored with VU Pride. Brief remarks by: Dr. Crystal J. Lucky, Associate Professor of English, Villanova

"Acting African: Performance and Language in the Illegal Brazilian Slave Trade" (video)

A lecture by Dr. Yuko Miki of Fordham University.

2016 Senghor-Damas-Cesaire Lecture: Helon Habila (video)

Award Winning Novelist Helon Habila, George Mason University. “The Future of the African Novel." Wednesday, November 2, 2016 4:00 pm Falvey Library, Rm. 204

"Rev. Charlotte Riley and the Image of Black Women's Piety" (video)

The Africana Studies Program and Falvey Memorial Library cordially invite you to a talk by author, Crystal J. Lucky, PhD. The talk, “Rev. Charlotte Riley and the Image of Black Women's Piety,” took place Thursday, Oct. 27, 2016, at 4 p.m., in Falvey’s Speakers’ Corner. Dr. Lucky discussed the Reverend Mrs. Charlotte S. Riley, an African American woman who was a licensed minister and popular preacher in the Carolinas after emancipation from slavery. Dr. Lucky discovered a forgotten autobiography of the former slave and has recently published Riley’s memoir with the University of Wisconsin Press, providing an introduction and notes.

2015 Ida B. Wells Lecture: Adam F. Bradley (video)

"Ralph Ellison Listens to Kendrick Lamar and Other Counterfactuals," Adam F. Bradley, Department of English, University of Colorado. April 2015.

"Chocolate Soldiers" (video)

A lecture by Drexel University History Prof. Gregory S. Cooke. November 2014.

2013 Ida B. Wells Lecture: Patrice Rankin (video)

Dr. Patrice Rankin, Associate Professor of Communication at Purdue University, spoke on Monday, April 15 in the Falvey Memorial Library, room 205 at 4pm. Dr. Rankin lectured on "(Black) Venus(es): The Word, the Body, and the Performance of Theatrical Traditions." This event was co-sponsored by the English and Communication departments.

Erupting Silences: Dr. Tess Onwueme Speaks/Performs the Soul of Africana (video)

November 14, 2012 at 4 p.m. in the Connelly Center Cinema. Dr. Onwueme is a University Professor of Global Letters from the University of Wisconsin. Co-Sponsored by the Cultural Studies Program & the Institute for Global Interdisciplinary Studies.

2012 Senghor-Damas-Césaire Lecture: Molefi Asante (video)

Senghor-Damas-Césaire Lecture in Africana Studies. Africana Studies hosted Dr. Molefi Asante, Professor of African American Studies at Temple University. Dr. Asante spoke on "Negritude and the United States of Africa" on Tuesday, November 13, 2012 at 4:00 p.m. in Falvey Library room 205. Co-sponsored by The Cultural Studies Program and The Institute for Global Interdisciplinary Studies.  

"Reflection Eternal: Hip-Hop, an American Folk Art, Birthed in Africa" (video)

Villanova Law School alumnus and Temple University instructor Timothy Welbeck presented this lecture. November 2012.

2012 Ida B. Wells Lecture: Gregory Hampton (video)

"Changing Bodies: Rethinking a Genre," presented by Gregory Hampton, Ph.D., of Howard University's English Department.