Johns Hopkins UniversityEST. 1876
America’s First Research University
Undergraduate students in the Spring 2025 Critical Diaspora Studies semester course Freedom Education: Embodied Speculative History of Maryland Schools for African Americans in the 1800s brought to life the daily patterns of Black education during Reconstruction through the execution of two original short films.
“From the Borderlands to Baltimore: Meeting the Challenges for Migrants and Refugees Today,” on February 6, 2025, brought together migration and refugee activists and experts to share their experiences on the challenges at the U.S.-Mexico border and Baltimore alike.
Award-winning, bestselling author and Baltimore native Ta-Nehisi Coates will speak with Dr. Nathan Connolly (JHU History) and Dr. Sara Rahnama (JHU PhD, 2018) to address the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive myths that shape our world.
In May 2022, the RIC faculty board voted unanimously to support the proposal for a new undergraduate major, tentatively called Critical Diasporic Studies. On Tuesday, September 13, 2022, RIC hosted a roundtable event titled “A Department of Reparations?” to further echo student demands for new curricular initiatives at JHU. Featuring eminent scholars in the fields of racial and ethnic politics and transnational cultural studies, Dr. Adom Getachew and Dr. Lisa Lowe, the roundtable sketched the contours of what new directions in the study of racism, diaspora, and indigeneity might look like in our present moment.