2024-25 Annual Conference: Black Studies and the Crises of Our Times

Wednesday, Mar. 12 - Friday, Mar. 14

See conference details for locations.

2024-25 | Black Studies and the Crises of Our Times
Black Studies and the Crises of Our Times responds broadly to the impact of the field since its formal establishment over 50 years ago. This multi-day conference, organized by the Department of Africana and American Studies in conjunction with the Humanities Institute, will articulate why we need Black Studies more than ever for both its national critique and its global articulations of political community.
Black Studies helps us make sense of current global relations and their significance to Black life and beyond
One account of Black Studies understands the field as emerging from crises produced when Black people demanded full citizenship rights in the USA. An alternate account concerns itself with Black peoples’ struggle to write a counter-history of the world we inhabit: the manner in which it has both been made and understood.
The 2025 HI Annual Conference draws from the second account of Black Studies, considering how scholars in the field bring different accounts of the world that we have made to intellectual conversations, dialogues and debates. Guest scholars, artists and activists will apply a wide array of political, theoretical, methodological and activist positions to problems internal to the field while examining, most importantly, how Black Studies helps us make sense of current global relations and their significance to Black life and beyond.
CONFERENCE SCHEDULE
Wednesday, March 12 | Opening Reception and Keynote
Location: Center for the Arts Atrium and Screening Room (112 CFA) | Link to map
5:00 p.m. | Reception
Please join us in the Center for the Arts Atrium for a casual reception including light fare and beverages.
5:45 p.m. | Welcome, Keynote, and Opening Panel
Center for the Arts Screening Room (112 CFA)

Welcome
Elizabeth Otto, Professor of Modern Art History (GGSS) and Director, UB Humanities Institute
Rinaldo Walcott, Conference Convener, Professor and Carl V. Granger Chair, UB Africana and American Studies
Keynote: “Struggling with Words: Black Studies and the Crises of our Time”

Deborah E. McDowell, Alice Griffin Professor of Literary Studies and former Director of the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American and African Studies, University of Virginia [participating via Zoom]
Opening Panel: How to Think in a Crisis (1)
Panelists:
Nicholas Brady
Christy Garrison-Harrison
Biko Mandela Gray
Moderated by Rinaldo Walcott
Thursday, March 13 | Full Conference Day
Locations: Student Union Landmark Room (210 Student Union) and Center for the Arts Screening Room (112 CFA)
Student Union Landmark Room (210 Student Union)
Click here for map
8:30 a.m. | Breakfast
Breakfast will be provided.
9:00 a.m. | Welcome and Acknowledgments
9:15 a.m. | Session 1

Biko Gray, “On Evil: A Speech to Our Antiblack Despisers”
Sirma Bilge, "Counter-hegemonic interventions for an interregnum"
Jarrett Martin Drake, "Dark Study: Research as Conspiracy amid the Anti-Blackness of Risk"
11:00 a.m. | Break
11:15 a.m. | Session 2

zuri arman, "Mistrust Amidst Crisis"
Nicholas Brady, "Care Without Reserve: Conceptualizing the Blackness of Rioting"
Zalika U. Ibaorimi / n0humaninv0lved, "2 Die 4... the Ppl"
1:00 p.m. | Lunch
Lunch will be provided.
1:45 p.m. | Session 3

M. Nicole Horsley, "The Soundtrack of My Grief: A Love Letter to Black Studies In the Midst of Mourning"
Christy Garrison-Harrison, ‘Black Southern Femininities and Bounce: "Ho* Who is You Playing With?”’
Mopelolade Ogunbowale, “African (Popular Music) Studies and the Black Studies Agenda”
3:30 p.m. | Break
Move to Center for the Arts Screening Room (CFA 112)
Click here for map
4:00 p.m. | Session 4

Peter James Hudson, "The Disinherited: Haiti and the History of Capitalism"
Jemima Pierre, "Black Studies and the Question of Empire"
W. Chris Johnson, "Incitement and Other Disorderly Acts: Scenes of Black Study and Antifascist Tradition"
5:45 p.m. | End of Day
Friday, March 14 | Morning Session
Location: Student Union Landmark Room (210 Student Union) | Link to map
9:30 a.m. | Breakfast
Breakfast will be provided.
10:00 a.m. | Closing Panel | How to Think in a Crisis (2)
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
March 12-14, 2025
Wednesday, March 12 | Evening | Opening Keynote and Reception
Thursday, March 13 | Full Day | Talks, Panels, Discussion
Friday, March 14 | Morning
Convened by Rinaldo Walcott, Professor and Carl V. Granger Chair of the department of Africana and American Studies at the University at Buffalo.
Keynote Speaker
Deborah E. McDowell, Alice Griffin Professor of Literary Studies and former Director of the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American and African Studies, University of Virginia
Speakers
2/22/25
Deborah E. McDowell
Alice Griffin Professor of English, English/African American and African Studies, University of Virginia
1/27/25
Biko Mandela Gray
Associate Professor of Religion, Syracuse University
2/22/25
Jarrett Martin Drake
Assistant Professor, Africana and American Studies, University at Buffalo

1/27/25
M. Nicole Horsley
Associate Professor, Center for the Study of Culture, Race, and Ethnicity; Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Screen Cultures, Ithaca College

“An interdisciplinary scholar of Black diasporas, W. Chris Johnson is an Associate Professor in the Women & Gender Studies Institute and the Department of History at the University of Toronto. ”
2/22/25
W. Chris Johnson
2/22/25
Mopelolade Ogunbowale
Assistant Professor, Africana and American Studies, University at Buffalo
2/22/25
Jemima Pierre
Distinguished Faculty of Arts Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies
University of British Columbia, Vancouver
1/27/25
Nicholas Brady
Assistant Professor, Critical Black Studies, Bucknell University
1/27/25
Christy Garrison-Harrison, PhD
Assistant Professor of History and Women's Studies, Southern University and Agricultural & Mechanical College
2/3/25
Peter James Hudson
Associate Professor, University of British Columbia
“zuri arman is a writer, curator, and cultural organizer from Charlotte, North Carolina. As a PhD candidate in the Department of Africana Studies at Brown University, their dissertation project interrogates the function and form of methodological thinking in the modern production of knowledge relative to the autopoetic reproduction of black social captivity in politics and aesthetics. ”
1/27/25
zuri arman
1/27/25
Zalika U. Ibaorimi (n0humaninv0lved)
Assistant Professor of Black Sexualities, The Ohio State University
2/22/25
Sirma Bilge
Professor, Sociology, Universite de Montreal
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(Click on arrows to see all the conference speakers. Click on image for individual speaker bios.)

Annual Conference
3/5/26
In collaboration with colleagues conducting research in various disciplines at the University at Buffalo, HI hosts an annual gathering of notable national (and international) scholars in conversation with UB faculty and graduate students, framed through the lens of the humanities to address timely topics of concern.