AAASRC Calendar of Events 2025-2026

Ethnographic Film and Media Festival
organized by Professor Bennetta Jules-Rosette
Wednesday, December 10, 3:30 – 5:00 pm
Social Sciences Building #101

Black History Month, February 2026
Theme: A Century of Black History Month
Commemorations, Lectures TBD

Afro-Caribbean Dance & Drumming Workshop
with Master Percussionist Gene Perry
Thursday, February 19, 3:30 – 5:00 pm
Social Sciences Building #101

Black History Month Brunch
Saturday, February 20, 10:00 am
UCSD Price Center West Ballroom, A and B

ArtPower! in Collaboration with AAASRC
2026 Events TBD

AAASRC 32nd Anniversary Awards Banquet
Friday, May 29, 5:00 pm
UCSD Faculty Club

AAASRC Brochure 2025-2026

Statement of Purpose

Our goal is to facilitate faculty, postgraduate, and graduate research in African and African diaspora studies in the social sciences and the humanities and to foster the comparative, cross-national, and interdisciplinary dimensions of research with a core group of leading scholars. These research efforts are linked to larger local and international community concerns. The Center also oversees the undergraduate African Studies Minor.

For more information regarding AAASRC, or to be on our mailing list, call (858) 534-9063 or email bjulesrosette@ucsd.edu. We have an extensive list of resources on issues concerning African and African-American communities, newsletters and information about African Studies, as well as the experience and relationships that have been acquired over AAASRC’s thirty-two years in existance.

Contact AAASRC

Director: Prof. Bennetta Jules-Rosette <bjulesrosette@ucsd.edu>
Coordinator: Zoe Catz Johnson <zcatzjohnson@ucsd.edu>
Phone: (858) 534-9063
Mail: 9500 Gilman Dr
La Jolla, CA 92093-0533

About AAASRC

 AAASRC is an independent research unit of the University of California, San Diego with a rich, thirty-two-year history. Several European and African institutions have established ongoing relationships with the Center most notably, the Centre d’Étude d’Afrique Noire (CÉAN) at the Université de Bordeaux I V, the Université de Paris V, the African Studies Research Centre (ARC) at the University of Leuven in Belgium, and the National University of Côte d’Ivoire. The African and African-American Studies Research Center is an oasis and an international crossroads for students, faculty, and community members interested in African, African-American, and multicultural research issues and teaching at UCSD. We look forward to the upcoming year with enthusiasm and energy.

Soc. I-105/G-227 Ethnographic Film and Media Methods

Professor Bennetta Jules-Rosette

Fall 2025

This course will examine in detail the assumptions and techniques involved in the ethnographic recording of field data in written and audiovisual formats. It will juxtapose written, audiovisual, and mediated ethnographies and will critically assess their styles and approaches. You will be required to write an essay contrasting a written ethnography and a film and to develop an independent video project of your own. In so doing, we shall study the essential features of ethnographic and documentary field recording and editing.

WED 3:00-5:50 PM AND TH 2:00-4:20 PM, SSB 101.

Section ID: 974417 (SOCl) OR 974414 (SOCG). 6 UNITS.

Soc I/157 Religion in Contemporary Society

Professor Bennetta Jules-Rosette

Summer Session II 2025: Aug 4-Sept 6. Session ID: 890625.

Tu/Th 6:00 – 8:50 pm

This course will focus on two major topics: (1) an examination of the social organization of religious movements, with a special emphasis on religious sects in contemporary America and Third World nations, and

(2) a more detailed analysis of religious practices, including liturgy, rituals, and the subjective experiences that accompany them. We shall begin by exploring the role of religious sects in the United States through library readings, field research reports, and accounts of current events. Then we shall focus on the comparative analysis of cross-cultural materials about religious movements and rituals in other societies.