Sherwin Bryant is approaching his new role as director of the Center for African and African American Studies with energy, enthusiasm and a vision that he said reflects the capacious and thoughtful energy that went into creating the center.
“African and African American studies touch everything that we consider thought at the university,” Bryant said. “If we’re thinking about questions of sustainability, artificial intelligence, design questions, built environment — these are all questions that matter to and that are central to our understanding of the African continent, what’s going on right there right now, as well as people of African descent all over the Americas.”
Bryant said he has big plans for CAAAS, from supporting and growing faculty and research to expanding opportunities for Rice students for greater public engagement. But one of the first things on his list after taking the helm Jan. 1 was designing programming for Black History Month.
“I think history is fundamental to this particular project of African and African American studies, so it’s important to mark Black history,” he said.
Bryant created events for the month to focus on some of the important areas of commitment that the center already possesses. “Each of our talks were meant to both engage the community beyond the hedges, while at the same time engage these particular areas and approaches that are already anchored in the Center for African and African American Studies,” he said.
The center kicked off its events for the month with the lecture “Refusal: Black Women’s Fight for Survival and Humanity in Colonial Mexico,” presented by Danielle Terrazas-Williams, an associate professor at the University of Leeds. The event was held at the African American Library at the Gregory School in Freedmen’s Town in Houston’s Fifth Ward.
speakers presented a variety of
topics during Black History Month
at Rice.
“It was really important to me that we reach out and look for spaces like the Gregory School to try to host events and to curate talks,” Bryant said.
Bryant added that the campus community can expect more dynamic programming, an increased research footprint, and additional undergraduate and graduate courses in African and African American studies in the future. This will include two of his own courses — Race, Resistance and Revolution: Blacks and Blackness in Latin America and Comparative Slavery in the Epoch of Atlantic Racial Enslavement.
“For me, it’s really important to ground the history and the material histories of racial slavery in the Americas in the study of African and African Americans,” he said.
Bryant said he also wants the center to be known as a space where students can gather and have conversations about the topics interesting to them. “Whether that’s about books or films or other interests, we want them to know that we’re eager to have those kinds of dialogues with them and that we want to partner with them and develop new opportunities,” he said.
More information on CAAAS can be found online at https://caaas.rice.edu.
Amy McCaig
Senior Media Relations Specialist, Office of Public Affairs