Envision, Engage, Transform...

“Envisioning the academy as a site of critical engagement for social transformation. . .”

IRAAS is an intellectual community that bridges scholarship, teaching, and public life.

We envision the project of African American Studies as a multi-disciplinary enterprise. Our faculty employ an array of theoretical approaches and methodological strategies to examine historical and contemporary formations in black culture, politics, and society.

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Trailer screening of documentary, "Pier Kids: The Life"
with Elegance Bratton
Friday, April 11, 2014 - 4:00 P.M. - 5:30 P.M.
Examining the legacy of Stonewall and the Gay Rights Movement
as it ignites the lives of three gay and transgender youth of color.

IRAAS presents Film Screening & Director Discussion
with Yoruba Richen
Wednesday, April 16, 2014 - 7:30 P.M. - 9:30 P.M.
The story of how the African-American community
is grappling with the gay rights issue.

IRAAS presents CONVERSATIONS
with Jelani Cobb
Friday, April 18, 2014 - 4:00 P.M. - 5:30 P.M.
Topic: "Contingent Freedoms and the Paradoxes of Progress"

IRAAS & Columbia University Rare Book & Manuscript Library present a DANCER in the REVOLUTION
April 24, 2014- 7:00 P.M. - 9:00 P.M.
Topic: A Celebration & Book Panel Discussion with Eve Boutilié-Oxby,
Kevin Fellezs, Robert O'Meally and Mark Naison.

Upcoming Events

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Featured Faculty Book

Dr. Farah Griffin
Harlem Nocturne: Women Artists and Progressive Politics During World War II
Dr. Carl Hart
High Price: A Neuroscientist's Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society

 

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Featured Faculty

Mabel WilsonFaculty Fellow Mabel Wilson is an Associate Professor and is author of Negro Building: Black Americans in the World of Fairs and Museums focusing on black Americans’ participation in world’s fairs, Emancipation expositions, and early black grassroots museums and tracing the evolution of black public history from the Civil War through the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
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Video Gallery

Videos Exclusively on YouTube

 

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IRAAS News

  • Fall 2014 Conference: Call for Proposals
    "Are the Gods Afraid of Black Sexuality?: Religion and the Burdens of Black Sexual Politics"
    Deadline: April 15, 2014
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  • Pot Reform’s Race Problem:
    The fight against marijuana prohibition must put racial justice at the center.
    Carl L. Hart, Associate Professor of Neuroscience, Columbia University 
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  • THE HUFFINGTON POST:
    Holder's Proposal Is Insufficient: Congress Needs to Decriminalize Drugs
    August 16, 2013:
    Nearly three weeks after President Obama acknowledged, "racial disparities in the application of our criminal laws, everything from the death penalty to enforcement of our drug laws," Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Justice Department would no longer charge low-level drug offenders with offenses that impose severe mandatory sentences.
    Carl L. Hart, Associate Professor of Neuroscience, Columbia University
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  • THE HUFFINGTON POST:
    Challenging Punishment: What the California Prisoners' Hunger Strike Tells Us About Mass Incarceration
    July 17, 2013:
    The hunger strike at Pelican Bay is the third such action in the past two years and only the most recent in a 20-year history of protests against conditions there going back to the 1995 Madrid v. Gomez case.
    Samuel K. Roberts, PhD Associate Professor of History and Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University 
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  • IRAAS Professors Carla Shedd & Dorian Warren individually awarded Columbia Provost’s Junior Faculty Grant for contributions to the University’s diversity goals.
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  • IRAAS Faculty Kevin Fellezs is the Co-Winner of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music - US Branch's 2012 WOODY GUTHRIE BOOK AWARD for the most distinguished English language monograph in popular music studies published during 2011.
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  • Souls Journal: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society is now housed at the University of Illinois at Chicago. For information regarding Souls Journal please visit their website:
    www.uic.edu/depts/oaa/souls/
  • IRAAS Faculty Fellow Kellie Jones' curates show "Now Dig This!' moves to MoMA PS1.
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  • IRAAS Faculty Fellow Samuel K. Roberts writes an op-ed piece on the war on drugs in the Huffington Post.
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