By Lindsey Piercy

The Kentucky Poet Laureate’s book of poetry, “Perfect Black" (University Press of Kentucky), is nominated in the category of “Outstanding Literary Work – Poetry.”

The NAACP Image Awards program highlights the achievements of people of color across television, music, literature and film, and the promotion of social justice through their creative endeavors.

"Me and my partner Ron Davis (who illustrated ‘Perfect Black’) are extremely honored to be a part of this tradition of celebrating Black advocacy and activism through art,” Wilkinson said. “As descendants of a long

By Jenny Wells-Hosley

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Jan. 10, 2021) — The University of Kentucky is continuing its support for the new Commonwealth Institute for Black Studies (CIBS), based at UK.

Created with $250,000 of seed funding from the university last fall, the institute will now receive annual funding of $200,000 through UK’s Office for Institutional Diversity — an important step forward in helping the institute achieve its goals.

“Black studies is for everybody, and by funding the institute, UK is supporting all of us,” said Anastasia Curwood, director of CIBS and African American and Africana Studies (AAAS) at UK. “It's hard to find an

By Phil Harling

Please join us in extending a warm Kentucky welcome to Devyn Spence Benson and Hilary Jones! Hilary and Devyn are wonderfully accomplished researchers and instructors who joined our faculty this fall as associate professors with tenure, and joint appointments in the Program in African American and Africana Studies. We are so thrilled to be able to call them our friends and colleagues!

Devyn Spence Benson is a 20th century historian who focuses on antiracist movements across the Americas and the Caribbean. Her research and teaching interests sit at the intersection of Africana Studies and Latin American history, and she has worked throughout her career to merge these two interdisciplinary fields by focusing on Afro-Cuban history, politics, and culture. Before her arrival at UK, Devyn has taught at Williams College, Louisiana State University, and Davidson

By Jenny Wells-Hosley

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 25, 2021) — The University of Kentucky will welcome Emily Hudson, community activist and founder of the Southeast Kentucky African American Museum and Cultural Center, to campus next week as part of the Appalachian Forum series.

The lecture, titled “Yes, You Can Come Home Again,” will take place 5 p.m. Monday, Nov. 1, in the William T. Young Library UK Athletics Auditorium, and on Zoom. The presentation is sponsored by the UK Appalachian Center and Appalachian Studies Program, African American and Africana Studies (AAAS), and the Commonwealth Institute for Black Studies (CIBS) at UK.

Hudson will share excerpts from her book, “Soul Miner,” and discuss her journey in search of her identity as an Appalachian and an African American. She will

By Jesi Jones-Bowman

UK undergraduate researchers Bridget Bolt and Gretchen Ruschman. Students are encouraged to explore undergraduate research opportunities at the Research + Creative Experience Expo.

At the University of Kentucky, undergraduates have access to outstanding research and creative work activities led by world-class faculty and staff that promote self-discovery, experiential learning and lifelong achievement.

Explore exciting undergraduate opportunities at the first annual UK Research + Creative Experience Expo 3-5 p.m. Monday, Sept. 13, around the Gatton Student Center’s Social Staircase.

“The goal of the Research + Creative Experience Expo is to introduce undergraduates to the diversity of research and creative work conducted at UK,” said Chad Risko, faculty

By Lindsey Piercy

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Aug. 6, 2021) — Before you know it, summer will be coming to a close. But there’s still time to get lost in a good book.

We asked the University of Kentucky community to recommend books they feel would make good additions to anyone’s summer reading list.

In the descriptions below, faculty members from the College of Arts and Sciences share the books they can’t put down. Pulling from the worlds of history and fiction — their picks explore timely themes while providing intriguing insights.

“A Time of Gifts” by Patrick Leigh Fermor

Recommended by Phil Harling, chair of the Department

By Jenny Wells-Hosley

LEXINGTON, Ky. (March 1, 2021) — The new Commonwealth Institute for Black Studies (CIBS) at the University of Kentucky will host its official launch event this week with an address by American literary critic and scholar Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr.

“An Evening with Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr.” will take place 7-8 p.m. Wednesday, March 3, on Zoom. The event is free and open to the UK community and the public, though advanced registration is required.

“Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is an exceptional scholar, historian and teacher,” said George Wright, interim vice president for institutional

By George Wright

One of the most rewarding parts of my role as chair of the diversity, equity and inclusion implementation plan, is that I continue to meet outstanding individuals from UK who are devoted to their community – Dr. Anastasia Curwood is one of those leaders.

Where are you from and what is your background?

I am from Cambridge, Massachusetts and grew up going to the Cambridge public schools until I went to college, which was at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania – an all-women’s institution. That was where I became devoted to scholarship.

When I went to graduate school at Princeton for history, what was important to me was having a vibrant community of Black scholars. My advisor was Nell Irvin Painter, the great historian, and she had a very talented group of students

By Richard LeComte 

Five recently hired faculty members associated with the African American and Africana Studies interdisciplinary program in the College of Arts & Sciences are broadening the range of diverse and inclusive course offerings to University of Kentucky students. The five new hires are JWells, Vieux Touré, Lydia Pelot-Hobbs, Brandon M. Erby and Aria S. Halliday. 

“It is important to hire Black faculty in these areas and all areas, because their individual and collective research expertise is essential to the mission of the University,” said Damaris B. Hill, interim director of the African American and Africana Program.  “This kind of research is essential because we, at the University of Kentucky and beyond in our global community, cannot understand where humanity has been

Aria S. Halliday, assistant Professor in the department of gender and women’s studies and in African American and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky,  participated recently in "The future of America, according to 7 teachers," a feature on the NBC "Today" show.

"The future of America is a diverse, people-centered and people-led democracy that actively works to end white supremacist capitalist patriarchy and its effects (racism, colorism, fatphobia, xenophobia, etc.) in policies and cultural landscapes," Halliday said on the NBC website. 

You can take a look at more of what she has to say here. 

August 30, 2020

Dear Athletic Director Barnhart, Coach Calipari, Coach Stoops, and Coach Mitchell:

The Faculty and Staff in the African American and Africana Studies (AAAS) Program at the University of Kentucky invite you to begin a dialogue with our greater UK community on sports and social justice.  The recent confrontations between the police and Black communities, including the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmad Arbery, has moved many professional athletes to comment on the impact of police brutality on their lives.  Our empathy recognizes and acknowledges the statements of anguish shared by Chris Paul, Doc Rivers, and Chris Webber.   Student-athletes at UK also want and need to talk about these events. The AAAS Program at UK has long served as a moral center on campus, and it is staffed with experts

UK student, Makalani Bandele, was featured on Poem-a-Day on August 19, 2020.  You can listen to an audio recording of the poem, sample collected from a superfund site, here.

By Jay Blanton

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Aug. 5, 2020) — University of Kentucky President Eli Capilouto and faculty leaders in the African American and Africana Studies (AAAS) program on Wednesday announced the establishment of the proposed Commonwealth Institute for Black Studies — a multidisciplinary program that will highlight UK’s growing research around issues of race and racism.

Capilouto and AAAS faculty on Thursday announced an initial $250,000 investment as seed money to leverage additional investment to help the institute move forward with a critical series of initiatives. The creation of a new institute, ultimately, must receive approval from UK’s University Senate.

The interdisciplinary institute will establish research clusters across the campus and promote UK’s growing research and scholarship

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Aug. 3, 2020) — This summer, the United States has seen nationwide demonstrations and protests in light of, among other things, the killing of George Floyd during an arrest in Minneapolis May 25. Local protests, including ones in response to the death of former University of Kentucky student Breonna Taylor during a "no-knock" warrant raid in Louisville on March 13, quickly spread across the country, and The New York Times cited polls that estimated, as of July 3, between 15 and 26 million people had participated at some point in the demonstrations, making them the largest in U.S. history.

On this week’s episode of "Behind the Blue," Assistant Professor Eladio Bobadilla of the University of Kentucky Department of History discusses these movements and helps provide some context to what we’re

Dear President Capilouto,

The Faculty of the African-American and Africana Studies (AAAS) program at the University of Kentucky, in the names of former UK student Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, David McAtee, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, Dominique Fells, Riah Milton, and too many others, strongly condemn the unnecessary and racist violence that is daily inflicted upon Black Americans by white vigilantes and police who are paid to protect and serve.  We also recognize that police violence serves as the manifestation of broader systemic racism in the United States that leads to mass incarceration, economic inequality, and health inequities that disproportionately affect Black people.

We believe that our expertise can help the University as it faces the challenge of eradicating racism on campus. While the majority of us work in the College of Arts and Sciences, our ranks

By Lindsey Piercy

LEXINGTON, Ky. (June 19, 2020) ⁠— It’s been said that history can help us understand the present and inform the future.

Let’s travel back to April 9, 1865. At the Appomattox Court House in Virginia, Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered his Confederate troops to the Union’s Ulysses S. Grant — ending an excruciating four-year-long battle.

The Civil War came to a close, but a number of African Americans across the United States remained enslaved — forced to continue as if freedom didn’t exist.

This was especially the case in Texas, where thousands of enslaved people weren’t freed until June 19, 1865. Their long-awaited celebration would serve as the foundation of Juneteenth.

Today, the holiday, which celebrates the abolition of slavery, coincides with protests across the

By Richard LeComte

Three University of Kentucky professors have received the College of Arts & Sciences Award for the Promotion of Diversity and Inclusion. The award recognizes a faculty member who has helped to develop a more diverse atmosphere in the College.

The College Inclusivity Committee reviewed the nominations. The awardees are: DaMaris Hill, associate professor of English and Creative Writing;  

By Madison Dyment

Aria Halliday, who will be joining the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies and the African American and Africana Studies program in the fall, has been named a 2020 Career Enhancement Fellow by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. The department is part of the College of Arts & Sciences.

The fellowship program attempts to encourage minority junior faculty members and others dedicated to eradicating racial disparities in the arts and humanities. Halliday was awarded the year-long fellowship through this program. The grant is $30,000 over one year with an additional $1,500 for research or travel, a mentor and attendance at a conference connecting all fellows and mentors.

Halliday, born in Indianapolis and raised in Durham, North Carolina,  received a B.A. in Africana Studies from Davidson College, a M.A. in American

By Richard LeComte

LEXINGTON, Ky. (May 12, 2020) — As the COVID-19 pandemic persists, we — as a society — search for answers. COVID-19, first and foremost, is a public health crisis. But it also leaves us with pressing questions beyond health care.

The University of Kentucky is home to some of the world’s most renowned thought leaders, and they stand ready to answer those questions.

On Thursday, May 14, the College of Arts and Sciences will launch the “A&S From Anywhere” virtual speaker series to keep the campus community — and anyone interested in expanding their knowledge — apprised of the latest ideas on COVID-19 and its effects.

“We in the college recognize our responsibility in these stressful times to fulfill

By Richard LeComte

LEXINGTON, Ky. (May 5, 2020) — Sydney Sayre appreciates the history she’s making in May as she graduates as the University of Kentucky's first African American and Africana Studies (AAAS) major in the College of Arts & Sciences.

“The first black studies course took place at UK in 1969, and in 2020 I’ll be the first person to graduate as a major in African American and Africana studies,” said Sayre, who grew up on a horse farm and considers Lexington her hometown. “I think history is all about new beginnings and change and that is what this program is doing at UK — making history.”

African American and Africana studies was available as a minor until 2019, when it became a major. Sayre, who is double majoring in history, accumulated enough credits to be the first student to earn the