“Digging Together: Community Archaeology” — The Berman Triangle Sat., Feb. 25

Students are invited to a symposium called ‘Digging Together. Community Archaeology: Practice and Potential.’ It will be held  Saturday February 25 from 1pm to 4pm at the former Cross Street AME Zion Church (160 Cross St, just down from Neon Deli, opposite the Freeman Athletic Center). The forum will be This is being held in advance of beginning excavations on the ‘Beman Triangle’ (between Vine, Cross, and Knowles) in partnership with the Cross Street AME Zion Church this April. The project is being run as a service learning class where Wesleyan students are putting into practice the principles of shared partnerships through community archaeology as they learn about the history of the Beman Triangle and the methods of archaeology. This site is of national importance, as it was a planned mid-nineteenth century settlement of property owning African Americans. Here members of the AME Zion Church community (Middletown’s was the third such Church to form) managed to live successful lives in the face of racist oppression at a national and local level. The excavations will explore the material remains of the daily lives of these households.

 At the symposium, the  three speakers will be discussing projects which work in collaboration between communities and archaeologists to engage in archaeological projects which produce exciting research outcomes, but in partnership with communities and which also engage with their own interests in specific sites.

 Further details about the symposium are online, along with more details of the Beman Triangle archaeology Project: http://middletownmaterials.research.wesleyan.edu/beman-triangle/

 

Samsara — this Sat., 12/3, 8:30 p.m., Tickets on sale now!

Samsara is Wesleyan’s South Asian Cultural Show! Over the years, we have collected all of Wesleyan’s biggest and most talented South Asian enthusiasts to put on exciting shows about all things South Asia. This year we’re thrilled to be hosting two dance teams, one from Brown University and one from Yale University, along with different groups on campus to celebrate the wonderful culture. All proceeds for the event will go to Brighter Dawns! 

The show is DECEMBER 3RD at 8:30 PM in Crowell Hall. Tickets are on sale NOW at the Box office.

CAAS’s First Book Series: Prof. Oneka LaBennet ’94 on “She’s Mad Real: Popular Culture and West Indian Girls in Brooklyn” — Tues., 4:15 p.m.

Please join us tomorrow in CAAS’s Vanguard Lounge for the final speaker in the First Book Series. 

Anthropologist  Oneka LaBennet ’94 is Assistant Professor of African-American Studies and Women’s Studies at Fordham University. She received her Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from Harvard University in 2002. She will discuss her first book,  She’s Mad Real: Popular Culture and West Indian Girls in Brooklyn (New York University Press, 2011), an examination of West Indian adolescent girls’ complex negotiations of raced and and gendered identities within the context of American and Caribbean popular culture in Brooklyn. LaBennet is also Research Director for the Bronx African American History Project (BAAHP) where she leads a hip hop history initiative.

 

The talk will be followed by a book signing. 

The event is free and open to the public.  For more information, please contact Joan Chiari in AFAM at ext: 3569.

Buddhist Crafts Festival

Buddhist Craft Festival.

Offering Asian-themed crafts, altars, jewelry, knit items, candles, books, CDs, Christmas/holiday items with  a joyful atmosphere of music, food, and games, reiki, meditation lessons, reflexology and haiku poetry. Children are welcome. Free Admission. Sunday, Nov. 6, from 1 – 5 p.m. at the Mansfield Freeman Center for East Asian Studies, Wesleyan University, 343 Washington Terrace, Middletown Ct. www.bffct.net (860) 805-2078.

CAAS Lecture: Robin Kelley–“Faking It for Freedom” 4/14 8 p.m.

I am pleased to announce that the Center for African-American Studies 17th Annual Distinguished Lecture will be delivered by Robin D .G. Kelley, Professor of History, American Studies and Ethnicity at the University  of Southern California.  

Thursday, April 14    8 p.m.    Fayerweather Beckham Hall

 Faking it for Freedom:  Grace Haskells Amazing Journey through the Minefields of Race, Sex, Empire and war–A 20th Century Love Story

Robin D. G. Kelley is Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. He is the author of the prize-winning books Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original (The Free Press, 2009); Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression (University of North Carolina Press, 1990); Race Rebels: Culture Politics and the Black Working Class (The Free Press, 1994); Yo’ Mama’s DisFunktional!: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America (Beacon Press, 1997), which was selected one of the top ten books of 1998 by the Village Voice; Three Strikes: Miners, Musicians, Salesgirls, and the Fighting Spirit of Labor’s Last Century, written collaboratively with Dana Frank and Howard Zinn (Beacon 2001); and Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination (Beacon Press, 2002). He also edited (with Earl Lewis), To Make Our World Anew: A History of African Americans (Oxford University Press, 2000), a Choice Outstanding Academic Title and a History Book Club Selection.  Kelley’s essays have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals.

His residency is co-sponsored by the Office of Academic Affairs, Diversity and Institutional Partnerships, History, Ethics and Society Project, Center for Faculty Development,  College of the Environment, Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, Sociology and Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies.

All are welcome to this event. Kelley is an engaging and dynamic speaker!!!!!  For additional information please contact Gina Athena Ulysse (x3268 or gulysse@wesleyan.edu) or Joan Chiari (x3569 or jchiari@wesleyan.edu)

Internship Positions on Campus Next Year — Apps due Tues., April 5

Looking to Create Change on Campus Next Year?

Are you interested in any of the following:
providing programmatic and networking  opportunities for various activist groups on campus, facilitating difficult dialogue conversations between students and fostering meaningful connections between students, faculty and staff on campus?

If you answered yes to any of those questions please consider applying for one of the following internship opportunities:

 Dwight Greene ’70 Internship
  University Organizing Center Internship

 For more information about either one of these internships please click on the links below 

 http://www.wesleyan.edu/reslife/intern_postitions/Dwight_Greene_70_Intern.html

 http://www.wesleyan.edu/reslife/intern_postitions/University_Organizing_Center_Int.html

 Please note the deadline for applications is 5 p.m. on Tuesday, April 12, 2011. 

If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact Dawn Brown, dabrown@wesleyan.edu or (860) 685-3163. 

 

BAJARI! & After Fri., 4/1

Friday, April 1, 2011

Bajari

The West Indian Cultural Show will contain an array of live performances from various student groups. Performances will serve to showcase and highlight the mixed culture and multiple ethnicities from within the West Indies.

World Music Hall 8 p.m.

Bajari After-party

Students are invited to “willie-bounce”, “wine”, and “wuk-up” to reggae, calypso, and dancehall music! The explosive fusion of Caribbean sounds will be presented by DJ Stylez.

Co-Sponsored by Ajua Campos     Malcolm X House 10:30 p.m.

Carib Week: Student Panel–Caribbean Identities in the Wes Community 3/31

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Student Panel:  Caribbean Identities in the Wesleyan Community

What does it mean to be Caribbean?  How do Caribbean students identify away from the space and on the mainland?  How and in what circumstances does one identify (or neglect to identify) as Caribbean?  Questions like these and more will be addressed in this informal panel discussion.

Usdan, MPR 7:30 p.m.