James Turner, a ‘giant’ of Africana studies, dies at 82

James Turner, the founding director of Cornell’s Africana Studies and Research Center and a pioneer of the multidisciplinary approach to exploring the African diaspora, died Aug. 6 in Ithaca.

A&S opens application portal for Klarman postdoc fellowships

Klarman Fellows pursue research in any discipline in the College, including natural sciences, social sciences, humanities and the creative arts as well as cross-disciplinary fields. The application deadline is October 14.

Universal values and the national identity

"Taiwo thinks that we must recognize that the accumulated thought of humankind is part of our shared heritage."

Migrations initiative wins $5M Mellon grant for racial justice

Migrations: A Global Grand Challenge, part of Global Cornell, has won a three-year, $5 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Just Futures Initiative that will bring together scholars across the university and beyond to study the links between racism, dispossession and migration.

New Faculty: Michell Chresfield

Michell Chresfield, Africana Studies

The College Welcomes New Faculty for 2022-23

This year, 15 new faculty are bringing innovative ideas in a wide range of topics to the College of Arts & Sciences’ nexus of discovery and impact, including climate change, astronomy, identity studies and the economy.

Center’s grants seed diverse research in the social sciences

How do perceptions of luck shape views about inequality and redistribution? Could interventions nudge hiring managers to evaluate job candidates blindly, and thus more objectively? Has remote instruction during the pandemic improved student interactions and equity in science labs?

Africana studies class produces political leaders podcast

For their final projects, students in Africana Studies professor Carole Boyce-Davies’ Black Women and Political Leadership course created a podcast featuring interviews with Black women in politics.

NYC takes ‘significant, systemic steps’ toward desegregation of schools

Today, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced major changes to the way the city’s middle and high schools admit their students. Those changes include eliminating all admissions screens for middle schools for at least one year; eliminating a policy that allows some high schools to give students who live nearby first claim at spots in the school; and issuing grants to be used by schools to develop diversity and integration plans.

Cornell faculty featured on ‘The Academic Minute’

The program, airing on 70 stations, covers new and emerging topics in higher education.

‘Words as battle axes’: A&S professors appear in Frederick Douglass film

Derrick Spires, Edward Baptist, and Gerard Aching help tell the story of the man born into slavery who became an advocate for African American freedom. 

Goffe co-founds journal on indenture with Einaudi support

Scholar offers talk about Brazilian crackdowns and feminist response

Her talk is one of three in the African Diaspora Knowledge Exchange Series.

Panel: Segregation still ‘in force’ in US schools, neighborhoods

Civil rights legislation and Supreme Court rulings have undone a history of legal racial segregation in America, but schools and neighborhoods remain largely segregated, four Cornell faculty members said during the Nov. 19 webinar, “Racism in America: Education and Housing.”

Salah Hassan co-curates African modernist artist Kamala Ibrahim Ishag’s exhibition at the Serpentine, London

Kamala Ibrahim Ishag has forged a unique and expansive practice that is not defined by a singular style or movement.

Book: Time for Black women to claim the right to lead

Extending her research on writing by Black women around the world, Carole Boyce Davies examines the stories of Black women political leaders in Africa and in the global African Diaspora.

Abolitionist scholars featured in two virtual events, Nov. 19 & 20

Abolitionists envision a world in which police, prisons and border control do not exist and all people are emancipated; a world where racial capitalism does not operate, and the promotion of collective well-being is the organizing principle of society. 

Africana Studies course explores Black women leaders through podcasts

When Africana Studies professor Carole Boyce-Davies developed her Black Women and Political Leadership course in 2017, she knew she was expanding into relatively untouched territory. 

Goffe: Collaboration is key to major humanities grants

Grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Mellon Foundation will help make humanities research more accessible to scholars and the public.

Excavation uncovers 2K more artifacts at St. James church site

This semester’s work also featured an end-of-semester mini-field course for local children and youth presented by two Cornell students.

Yearlong series highlights sidelined composer

What began more than a year ago as an effort to celebrate a somewhat unknown female Black composer has grown into a collaboration between Cornell’s choral faculty, a major orchestra and musicians and faculty from across the country, who are participating in a host of initiatives to honor the works of Florence Price.

Toni Morrison to be inducted into Women’s Hall of Fame

Morrison, M.A. '55, is one of six women to be honored Dec. 10.

MLK's 1960s visits to Cornell still resonate today

King’s historic visit on Nov. 13, 1960, and a second, on April 14, 1961, came during a period when he was honing ideas that would take center stage at the March on Washington in 1963