Research
The Institute for African American Affairs is the research arm of the department, also known as IAAA.
Learn more about the Institute
INSTITUTE LUNCH AND LEARN LECTURES
Since 2009, the Institute director has invited guest speakers to the IAAA lunch and learn lectures. These lectures are informal, and typically held at lunch time, at Oscar Ritchie Hall. Speakers will be DAFS faculty, other KSU faculty and administrators, invited scholars from other universities and colleges, practitioners in various pertinent fields (international development, community organizing, police and public safety, etc.), and DAFS graduates who return to share their experiences in the professional world. If you are interested in giving a lecture for the lunch and learn lecture please send an email to dpas@kent.edu. Learn more about the upcoming IAAA lunch and learn lecture schedule by visiting our events page.
Research Committees
The Institute will establish university-wide committees that constitute working research groups on specific themes. The output of these committees will be a series of Working Papers published by the Institute. The committees will also sponsor student-professor panels which will present at Oscar Ritchie Hall during the Week of Scholarship in late April-early May. Finally, the committees will be able to search for funding for on-going research work which can include student collaboration. We expect that professors in the departments of History, Geography, Sociology, Biology, Nursing, Political Science and others will participate. We also anticipate participation from professors from various programs such as the Water Management Institute and Women’s Studies.
Committees
- Diaspora and Migration: Globalization and Subaltern Identity
- Literature, the Arts, and the Media
- Public Health and Public Opinion
- Religious Communities and Race
- Geography, Culture and Urbanization
- Environment, Demography and Challenges to the Modern State
- Definitional Conundrums: Indigenous, Native, Authenticity, Tradition, and Purity
THE KITABU
The Kitabu (literally, book in Swahili) is a publication formerly published by the IAAA. In the spring of 2009 the IAAA will re-launch this publication, which will serve as a forum for DAFS faculty and invited authors to present monographs relevant to the IAAA/New World Studies mission. During the fall of 2008 the Director of the Institute will invite scholars to serve on the editorial board for this journal. The anticipated length of the journal will be 50 pages, providing space for editorial comments, Institute announcements, and the monographs.