Our theme for 2012–2013 is "The Politics of Black Families and Intimacies".

The constitution of black family life and expressions of intimacy have been contested terrain since the dawning of the Atlantic slave trade. They have been used to judge moral fitness for national belonging and for determining access to material resources and the privileges of citizenship. They are continually imbricated in the politics of racial identity across the Atlantic. African-American studies as a scholarly enterprise has taken up these matters from an interdisciplinary perspective since its earliest inception. In that tradition, we will engage scholars from across disciplines including history, sociology, psychology, anthropology, and literary studies. We will interrogate a diversity of topics including heterosexual and same-sex relationships, marriage, living single, cohabitation, parenting, and incarceration. We will endeavor to consider these themes within the context of the Diaspora and across time. Can we construct new paradigms and methodologies to further future work? The stakes could not be greater at a moment when public policies and popular attitudes often contravene the most advanced research.

The Faculty-Graduate seminar is an intimate intellectual community. Our goal is to establish a small but intellectually diverse and committed group of scholars who will attend all meetings and engage in sustained discourse during the year. Given these goals and the limited meeting space, we are accepting only ten (10) graduate students into each semester’s seminar. We encourage graduate students to commit to both semesters and preference for spring registration will be given to students engaged in the fall seminar.

Please return the registration form to this year's Seminar Coordinator, Dionne Worthy (dworthy@princeton.edu). The Faculty Coordinator is Tera Hunter (thunter@princeton.edu).

Schedule – Fall 2012

Schedule – Spring 2013

Martha Jones, University of Michigan (Department of History and Afro-American & African Studies)

Sponsored by the Center for African American Studies and the Graduate School's Office of Academic Affairs and Diversity