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 & DrummingWorkshop with Master Percussionist GenePerry 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
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.
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.
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.
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.
African Studies is an interdisciplinary minor that covers African topics through a coordinated set of courses offered in the Departments of Anthropology, Communication, Ethnic Studies, History, Literature, Music, Political Science, Sociology, Theatre Arts, and Visual Arts. In addition to the offerings at UCSD, opportunities for further study in Africa and Europe are avail- able through the University of California Education Abroad Program and the UCSD Opportunities Abroad Program. Students develop a broad background in African histories, societies, cultures and politics. A minor in African Studies signals a candidate with a strong global perspective and offers a competitive edge in career and academic possibilities.
A minor in African Studies consists of six total courses. Take a minimum of one course from Groups A, B, and C, but take no more than four courses in any one department. Detailed course descriptions are available in the course catalog and up-to-date class information is available through the departments.
We are gearing up for AAASRC’s 31st Anniversary Awards Banquet on Friday, May 30, 2025 at 5:00 pm at the Atkinson Pavilion of the UCSD Faculty Club. As usual, the Banquet will begin with a meet-and-greet hour in the courtyard and will then move into the building t 6:00 pm. The donor link is https://giveto.ucsd.edu/giving/home/gift-referral/87b36118-eb31-4014-a657-60e8fe032349/ If you have trouble clicking on the link, you may go to the main Give to UCSD page and enter AAASRC in the Fund Search box and select the fund from the search results.
Our keynote speaker this year is UCSD alumna, Sabrina Strings, Ph.D. (Professor and North Hall Chair of Black Studies at UC Santa Barbara). Her research examines race, gender, and embodiment in science, media, and medicine. She has been featured in dozens of venues, including BBC News, NPR, Huffington Post, NowThis!, Essence, Vogue, TIME, and The New York Times. Professor Strings is also featured in the Netflix docuseries, “The Black Beauty Effect.” She is the author of the award-winning book Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia (NYU Press, 2019). Her second book, The End of Love: Racism, Sexism and the Death of Romance, is the subject of her keynote address for AAASRC’s Awards Banquet. More information about Professor Strings may be found on her website at: https://www.sabrinastrings.com.
Her first book, Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia (2019), was a dynamic exploration of gender embodiment and racial stereotypes. It received worldwide recognition and became an inspiration for her current book The End of Love: Racism, Sexism, and the Death of Romance (2024). Her new book examines the intersectionality of gender, race, and class in terms of a mythologized ethos of romance that has faded from many contemporary gendered interactions, provoking fragile and temporary contingencies in a kaleidoscopic world. Professor Strings addresses the interface between ideology and the structure of feelings in the domains of race and class. She explores how structural barriers reinforce and reflect the transience of interpersonal relationships that characterize the impermanency of the postmodern condition. Professor Strings is an eloquent commentator on gender, race, and social change in contemporary society and a visionary whose insights stimulate profound thoughts about the future of intimacy within a changing social and cultural landscape.
The Banquet will honor the outstanding achievements of African Studies students, faculty, staff, and community members. Tables of eight are available for purchase for $650.00. Support for individual students is $25.00. Early bird ticket purchases are due by Thursday, May 8, 2025 at $81.25 a piece. Day of Ceremony Tickets will be available in a very limited number for $85 each.
We look forward to seeing you at this very exciting event. With all the best,
Bennetta Jules-Rosette Distinguished Professor of Sociology Director, African and African-American Studies Research Center University of California, San Diego 858-534-9063 fax: 858-534-4753 bjulesrosette@ucsd.edu
Provost Ivan Evans (ERC) will present a lecture, film clips, and a discussion concerning government repression during the Apartheid Era (Sharpeville, 1960) and the Post-Apartheid Era (the Marikana Massacre, 2012), as well as the treatment of illegal miners in 6,000 abandoned mines in 2024. Patterns of violence and redress will be examined in a comparative perspective.
Professor Bennetta Jules-Rosette, Director African and African-American Studies Research Center Presents Dance & Drumming Workshop with Gene Perry
February 20, 2025 3:30 – 5:00 PM SSB 101
Master Drummer Gene Perry will present an Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Latin Dance and Drumming Workshop with practical applications of the musical rhythms and dances from various regions, with UCSD African Studies students.
AAASRC is thrilled to announce that our Director, Bennetta Jules-Rosette (Distinguished Professor of Sociology, UC San Diego), and our Board Member, J.R. Osborn (Associate Professor, Communication, Culture & Technology (CCT), Georgetown University), received recognition for their book, African Art Reframed (University of Illinois Press, 2020). The Arnold J. Rubin Outstanding Publication Award was presented at the Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA) Triennial in Chicago this month.
