Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity at the University of Chicago

RDI Assistant Professor Ryan Jobson was recently featured on the Working Class History Podcast. In a two-part series, Jobson discusses the Trinidad General Strike of 1937.

Jobson also wrote and published work of short fiction titled "Pork" in the latest issue of PREE: Caribbean. Writing.

Learn more about Jobson's work and stay up to date on RDI visit: https://linktr.ee/rdiatuchicago

Professor Adom Getachew was featured in The New York Review of Books . She was interviewed by Nawal Arjini about her work on Du Bois, decolonization, and the relationship between history and the present. Also published is her review of Howard French's book Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War (Liveright, 2021).

History’s Presence | Adom Getachew In the August 17 issue of the Review, the political theorist Adom Getachew writes about Howard French’s Born in Blackness, a radical reexamination of the

The Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity invites applications for a cluster hire of Assistant/Associate/Full professors whose research and teaching focus is Indigenous Studies. We anticipate making multiple appointments to start on or after July 1, 2024.

Apply on Interfolio: https://apply.interfolio.com/128026

We are thrilled to announce the winner of the department’s inaugural BA Thesis Prize: Scarlett Zhao Akeley’s “The Voice of Asian America: A Search for Shared Speech in the Formation of Pan-ethnic Identity, 1968 – 2022.”

Scarlett Zhao Akeley is a recent graduate from the College. As a Bay Area native, and as a student of both history and linguistics, her thesis explores how speech stereotypes influenced the Asian American Movement in 1960s California, when the very term “Asian American” was first coined. Ethnolects, or such ideological mappings between accent and race, have received relatively little attention in the field of Asian American studies. But by reading archival materials against linguistic theory, Akeley’s thesis shows how activists relied on accent to help define a new pan-ethnic racial identity—one now based on commonalities, rather than differences, within the Asian diaspora. Akeley hopes to continue this research with her Master’s thesis next year.

Image Credit: “Yellow Symposium 1969 Flyer,” Asian American Movement 1968; Detail from December 1970 issue of Gildra Magazine

Presenting the CRES class of 2023!! 🌈 We are so proud of our seniors, and wishing them all the best on their bright futures. Onward and upward!

Professor Leora Auslander, Associate Chair of the Department of RDI, has won the 2023 Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Award! The Quantrell Award is believed to be the nation’s oldest prize for undergraduate teaching. Please join us in congratulating Leora on this incredible honor.

UChicago announces 2023 winners of Quantrell and Graduate Teaching Awards UChicago announces 2023 winners of Quantrell and Graduate Teaching Awards May 25, 2023 The transformative education offered at the University of Chicago begins with the faculty who inspire, engage and inform the students they teach. The University annually recognizes faculty for their incredible tea...

Earlier this month, Professor Adrienne Brown joined The Trans-Atlanticist, a podcast hosted through the Amerikazentrum Hamburg, to discuss the poetry of Pulitzer-Prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks and unpack the social, economic, racial, cultural, and political history that informs her life and work.

NovelRomantics: Literature of Chicago Series: The Poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks In this episode, Douglas Cowie and Adrienne Brown (University of Chicago) discuss the life and poetry of Pulitzer-Prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks. They talk about her poems that document life in Chicago, "Kitchenette Building," "In the Mecca," "Chicago Picasso," and "The Wall," and unpack the so...

For RDI's final event of the school year, Audra Simpson (Columbia University) will be presenting her new paper, "Savage States: Settler Governance in an Age of Sorrow." Professor Simpson (Kahnawà:ke Mohawk) is the author of Mohawk Interruptus: Political Life Across the Borders of Settler States (Duke UP, 2014), and has been a Distinguished Visiting Professor at RDI for the past year. If you haven't yet met Professor Simpson, now is your opportunity to learn from this incredible scholar. See you there!

Awi’nakola: Regenerating Land and Culture Lunch and discussion with Awi’nakola founder Rande Cook (Ma’amtagila). To close, Lindsay Delaronde (Kanienke’haka) will lead a social dance.

Many congratulations to the CRES class of 2023!! Come celebrate our wonderful seniors at their BA Symposium on Thursday, June 1, from noon to 2:00pm in the CSRPC community room. Hear about their theses, grab some food, and raise a toast to their accomplishments -- they've certainly earned it!

RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cres-ba-symposium-tickets-620981581627

"Du Bois understood the global color line as a protean and flexible system of economic exploitation, structured by racism, that operated not only through war and conquest but also through the control of technology, investment capital, and the markets for colonial goods."

Adom Getachew and Jennifer Pitts explore Du Bois's insights into the global economic order in their recent collection, WEB Du Bois: International Thought. Read their interview with the Nation:

Another Side of W.E.B. Du Bois A conversation with Adom Getachew and Jennifer Pitts about Du Bois's thinking on imperialism, transnational solidarity, and their recent collection, W.E.B. Du Bois: International Thought.

You are warmly invited to join us in celebrating RDI's one year anniversary as a formal department. We'll have refreshments, grub, and good cheer for all. There's plenty to go around, so the more the merrier. Meet faculty, current students, and department staff, or just enjoy the free food.

RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/rdi-end-of-year-celebration-tickets-621013537207