Africana Studies

Dr. Ali Ali-Dinar of the Department of Africana Studies sits at a table in his office.

Lamentations for Sudan

Sudanese scholar Ali Ali-Dinar, a senior lecturer in the Department of Africana Studies, discusses the ongoing uprising in the East African country and the Sudan massacre.

Greg Johnson ・

Group of students and professor gathered at monument with mountain in back.

Seeing, hearing, and encountering post-apartheid South Africa

A Penn Global Seminar course taught by Carol Muller took the 16 undergraduates to South Africa to explore that nation's history and post-apartheid present day through music and culture. The students demonstrated the impact of the journey through final projects including a painting, a written paper, a poem, a film, a photo essay, a musical score—even a set of political cartoons.

Louisa Shepard ・

Six people sitting on a stage during discussion.

Documenting refugees

A documentary film by Penn junior Sonari Chidi and a panel discussion at Perry World House focused on the depiction of refugees and immigrants in the media.

Louisa Shepard ・

Kyle Oden

‘A Home for the Holidays’

On Dec. 31, Kyle Oden, a junior at Penn from Inglewood, Calif., and his family will be featured as part of a nationally televised holiday special: “A Home for the Holidays—the 20th Anniversary” celebrating families whose lives have been changed by adoptions.

Penn Today Staff ・

Camille_Z_Charles

Meeting of minds

With the Penn Alumni Reading Club, the Center for Africana Studies delivers intellectual engagement directly to alumni—and the public.

Penn Today Staff ・

Deborah Thomas in front of bookcase

The Healing Word

Deborah Thomas embeds herself in communities stricken by violence to chronicle the humanity revealed during the aftermath.

Blake Cole ・



Media Contact


Kristina García

Kristina García News Officer
klg@upenn.edu

In the News


Associated Press

In death, three decades after his trial verdict, O.J. Simpson still reflects America’s racial divides

Camille Charles of the School of Arts & Sciences says that Black Americans have grown less likely to believe in a famous defendant’s innocence as a show of race solidarity.

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Ms. Magazine

Torn Apart: Terror

PIK Professor Dorothy Roberts describes the horrors that the child welfare system inflicts by invading homes, targeting low-income families, and threatening to separate parents and children.

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Chicago Sun-Times

Race-based medicine is not the solution to health disparities

PIK Professor Dorothy Roberts says that race is a social category affected by inequality, not a biological category that naturally produces health disparities.

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Associated Press

For Emmett Till’s family, national monument proclamation cements his inclusion in the American story

Brent Leggs of the Weitzman School of Design says that the designation of a national monument honoring Emmett Till represents a milestone in the effort to preserve and protect places tied to wounds in American history.

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CBS News

Emmett Till and his mother to be honored with national monument

Brent Leggs of the Weitzman School of Design discusses the physical and societal landscape surrounding Emmett Till’s murder in 1955.

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Forbes

Black Harvard and Princeton students graduate at higher rates than classmates overall, equally at Yale

Brian Peterson of the School of Arts & Sciences says that Black students are aware they’re representing more than themselves at highly selective academic institutions.

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