12/23/2025
Today it is a with heavy hearts that we at AAASRC announce the passing of our Director, Distinguished Professor Bennetta Jules-Rosette.
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Bennetta Jules-Rosette (21 February 1948 - 7 December 2025)
A powerful and wonderful spirit, Bennetta Jules Rosette passed away on Sunday 7 December, 2025 at her home in Encinitas, California. Bennetta was a passionate academic with an international reputation as an expert in the history and culture of the African continent and possessed a seemingly infinite and deeply intimate knowledge of African American culture and politics. She modeled a distinguished career as an insightful and path-breaking scholar, an outstanding teacher, a dedicated mentor, and a champion of community outreach and community building.
Dr. Jules-Rosette was a Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and served as Director of the African and African-American Studies Research Center. She earned her Bachelor of Arts, summa cm laude, in Social Relations from Radcliffe College, followed by a Master of Arts (1970) and a Doctorate (1973) in Social Relations (Sociology and Anthropology) from Harvard University. She joined the UCSD Department of Sociology in 1971, becoming the first African-American woman to receive tenure at UCSD and the first woman to Chair the UCSD Department of Sociology (1981,1982-1985). Bennetta enjoyed a stellar global reputation and was on first-name relations with artists, academic scholars, community leaders and politicians across Africa, Europe, and the United States.
Her scholarly work spanned contemporary African art and literature, semiotic studies of Black Paris, religious discourse, new technologies in Africa, and museum studies. In addition to numerous journal articles, her major publications include African Apostles (1975), A Paradigm for Looking (1977), The New Religions of Africa (1979), Symbols of Change (1981), The Messages of Tourist Art (1984), Terminal Signs: Computers and Social Change in Africa (1990), Black Paris: The African Writers' Landscape (1998), Josephine Baker in Art and Life: The Icon and the Image (2007), and African Art Reframed: Reflections and Dialogues on Museum Culture (2020). She also contributed her expertise to multiple films, museum exhibitions, art events, and cultural productions.
She served on several editorial journals that specialized in Africana and cultural theory, and her academic posts included stints as the President of the Semiotic Society of America (1988-89), the President of the Association for Africanist Anthropology (2005-2009), and Member of the Advisory Council for The Smithsonian Institution (1981-1987). Her research was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the John Simon Guggenheim
Memorial Foundation, among others.
Bennetta came from a venerable Black family. Her father, Walter Edward Washington, was the first black mayor of Washington D.C. (1975-1979) and oversaw the capital city’s transition to self-governance. Her mother, a Ph.D. recipient from Howard University, was an educator who served on senior government administrative and policy bodies and published work on the challenges of urban black youth. With its love of knowledge and civic engagement, the influential family was a magnet for American politicians and had many connections, some of them familial, to activists and scholars such as Jesse Jackson, Henry Louis (Skip) Gates and many more. Beyond her remarkable academic career, she was a loving mother who generously included her daughter in travels across Africa and Europe, sharing the excitement and wonder of her research firsthand. She made holidays especially meaningful by creating cherished family traditions, and Friday nights became a beloved family ritual—watching classic films and enjoying Chinese food. These moments remain among her daughter’s most treasured memories.
Among her extensive legacy, Bennetta founded the African and African-American Studies Research Program at UCSD in 1993, which was late elevated to a Research Center. The sole-serving Director of AAASRP/AAASRC, she established a unique 30+ year movement that transcended the barriers between UC San Diego and the broad, diasporic black community that stretched across the San Diego region and beyond. As Director, her signature contribution was the fusion of rigorous scholarship, an ebullient celebration of black culture and a ceaseless desire to introduce successive generations of students to the multiple gifts that the black Diaspora has bestowed on the world. This same spirit was evident in the graduate and undergraduate courses she regularly taught on the sociology of culture, knowledge, art, aesthetics, film-making, and the historical bonds that distinguished black diasporic experiences.
Bennetta always cut her own path with vivacity, curiosity, and unmatched energy. Her colleagues will never forget her black berets, colorful brooches, turquoise rings, and the assortment of Africa-related colors that she loved. Nor will they forget the startled look on the staff at the UCSD Faculty Club when she opened up AAASRC Annual Awards Banquet by pouring a libation directly onto the carpeted floor to “summon the ancestors”. Her legacy includes a number of regular UCSD and AAASRC events, including the Ethnographic Film and Media Festival, numerous contributions to Black History Month, the Afro-Caribbean Dance & Drumming Workshop (with Master Percussionist Gene Perry), the long-running Art, Culture, and Knowledge (ACK) Group, and, of course, the AAASRC Anniversary Awards Banquet.
Bennetta held a special commitment to recognizing and elevating the work of students and emerging scholars, which the Association of Africanist Anthropology (AfAA) recognized by naming the Bennetta Jules-Rosette Graduate Essay Award in her honor. Under her mentorship, several undergraduate and graduate students received recognition and top awards from national academic organizations. Bennetta’s work reframed disciplinary debates, and she pioneered new frontiers and subfields of study for students, junior scholars, and established scholars alike. She contributed enormous amounts of insight, energy, and commitment to academic community building and path-breaking research, and she applied deep theoretical consideration to previously under-studied and under-theorized areas, including religious syncretism, computers in Africa, tourist art, Black Paris, and Josephine Baker studies.
Bennetta’s tireless devotion to scholarship and her ceaseless intellectual passion were truly inspiring. Her legacy lives on through her scholarship, her students, her family, and the enduring love she leaves behind. She is survived by her daughter, Violaine Thompson; her son-in-law, Fred Thompson Jr.; her granddaughter, Monica Lujan; Monica’s husband, Steven Lujan; and her beloved great-grandchildren, Michael Lujan and Jessica Lujan. We join Bennetta’s family, her colleagues around the world, and the countless students that she influenced in cherishing her memory and celebrating her uniquely colorful life. Bennetta contributed enormous amounts of insight, energy, and commitment to academic community building and truly path-breaking research. She is irreplaceable, and she will be deeply missed. “Hamba gathle, Bennetta!”
“Go well, Bennetta!”
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Edited to answer:
In lieu of flowers, please donate to AAASRC through the UC San Diego Foundation (Fund Number: RP042). Just enter AAASRC in the search box.
https://go.ucsd.edu/3FJXmvG
