The Global Black Studies Reading Group

The Global Black Studies Reading Group, one of CAS' newest community circles, aims to illustrate the broad and capacious nature of African and African-American Studies at Stanford and the field of Black Studies as a whole. Each quarter, the group will craft conversations that will appeal to a wide range of undergraduate and graduate students with varied interests, while also providing enough structure to ensure meaningful discussions and debates.

The theme for Winter quarter discussions will be "Black Cultures in Motion," while the theme for Spring quarter will be “Black Bodies: Past, Present, Future.” For each session, registered participants will be sent copies of two books: one visual work and one monograph, among other suggested materials (including visual blogs, digital galleries, podcasts, etc). Some sessions will be led by guest speakers, while other sessions by volunteer graduate students.

These events will serve as a meeting point for scholars in Black Studies across disciplinary and geographic interests. The would like to see more conversations on the global dimensions of Blackness and Black experiences, new and exciting collaborations between the humanities, the social sciences, and the sciences (such as scholars of race and medicine), and contribute to a stronger sense of community in general among people studying the African diaspora at Stanford.