Why We Need Black Studies: Breaking the Barriers between the university and community

The annual Race and Resistance Lecture which this year is co-sponsored by the School of History and the Conversations in Black History Series will be held on the 3rd May and given by Kehinde Andrews

We are delighted to welcome Kehinde Andrews, Associate Professor of Sociology who will talk on “Why We Need Black Studies: Breaking the Barriers between the university and community.”

You may have seen Kehinde on Newsnight recently or read his opinion pieces in the Guardian. Kehinde has been leading the development of the Black Studies Degree at Birmingham City University. He recently co-edited Blackness in Britain (2016) and is working on his next book Black Radicalism. His first book was Resisting Racism: Race, Inequality and the Black Supplementary School Movement (2013). Kehinde is director of the Centre for Critical Social Research; founder of the Organisation of Black Unity; and co-chair of the Black Studies Association.

Date: Wed 3 May 2017

Time: 6pm

Place: West Indian Centre, Chapeltown.

Address: 10 Laycock Pl, Leeds LS7 3AJ

Kehinde Andrews:

Why we need Black Studies: Breaking the barriers between the university and communities

In September 2017 we will launch the first Black Studies degree in Europe and Birmingham City University. Far from this being a celebration of having Black perspectives at universities, the aim is to use the opportunity to use the university space to help develop what Abdul Alkalimaat called the ‘science of liberation’. Black Studies has a long history in the UK, being done in the grassroots in community organisations and supplementary schools. This talk will discuss the importance of developing a critical Black Studies and the tensions of housing the degree and research in the university space. Black Studies is essential, but can it flourish in the institutionally racist space of the university?