AASD Fall 2013

FALL 2013 Pre-K to Prison Pipeline: Changing the Odds for Boys of Color ............................ 3

“Eslanda: The Large and Unconventional Life of Mrs. Paul Robe-son” ...........................5

AASD Faculty Research Abroad ......11

Finan-AASD U N I VE R S I T Y OF MA R Y LA N D

T H E D E P AR TM E N T O F AF R I C AN AM E R I C AN S TUD I E S

Greetings from AASD Interim Chair Dr. Odis Johnson Jr.

The African American Studies

Department (AASD) at the

University of Maryland is

committed to the examina-

tion of pressing social issues

that impact African Ameri-

cans, our pursuit of social

justice, and black communi-

ties around the world. Our department includes in-

ternationally recognized scholars, who engage com-

munities and policymakers on the topics of health,

gender, education, youth, neighborhoods, and popu-

lations abroad, and offers degree programs that pre-

pare our graduates for careers in public policy, law,

history and research among other professional fields.

Our academic year began with an impressive

start! We welcomed two Postdoctoral Teaching Fel-

lows to the department, Dr. Christopher St. Vil

from the Howard University, and Dr. Robert

Turner, most recently from the University of North

Carolina at Chapel Hill. The department also hosted

the symposium, “Pre-K to Prison Pipeline:

Changing the Odds for Boys of Color” the first

week in September. The symposium sought to ex-

pose the systematic ways boys of color are intro-

duced to a life of incarceration, and to discuss efforts

at prevention, recovery and ways to aid boys of color

in successfully negotiating social and educational

risks. Our symposium included leading experts, over

500 participants and many more through online

streaming. The success of this program was followed

by our welcoming to campus Dr. James Jackson,

Daniel Katz Distinguished University Professor of

Psychology and Director of the Institute for Social

Research at the University of Michigan. Finally, we

recognized the tenure and promotion of Dr. Rich-

ardson, and myself, as Associate Professors and my

start as the Interim Chair of the African American

Studies Department. We want you to know about

these accomplishments and what we do, in part, so

that you will want to join us in our journey, to invest

in us, and share in the joy of our successes!

The African American Studies Department

1119 Taliaferro Hall

College Park, MD 20742

Ph. 301-405-1158

Fax: 301-314-9932

website: www.aasd.umd.edu

2 AASD Fall 2013

Since its inception in 1969, the University of Maryland’s African American Studies Depart-

ment (AASD) has evolved into a leading undergraduate program that has become an inte-

gral part of the University of Maryland and the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences.

African-American Studies Department at the University of Maryland offers a truly interdis-

ciplinary program of excellence focused on the Black experience in the U.S., Africa and the

African Diaspora. Our national and internationally renowned faculty conduct research on

women and labor, social inequalities and health, educational inequalities and policy, incar-

ceration and victimization, and family dynamics and health in sub-Saharan Africa.

In 2009, AASD celebrated its 40th anniversary. This celebration was a reminder of

the important role that the department has played on our campus, providing intellectual

leadership in studies of racism, colonialism, slavery and culture of Africa and the Americas,

and advocacy, crucially at times, for African-descended people and issues within our state.

African American Studies has been a vital component in the University of Maryland’s ef-

forts to address the state’s history of educational segregation. Absent AASD, African

American people and issues of discrimination and diversity might have a far less central

place at the University and the institution might not fulfill its mission of service to all citi-

zens of the state as well as it does.

As aforementioned, AASD has played an important role in educating UMD under-

graduate students. Indeed, the department has been responsible for a large number of

seats contributing to UMD diversity requirements, about 1000 a year. The department’s

very presence on campus is a reminder of how important African Americans have been na-

tionally, internationally, in the State of Maryland, in greater Washington, DC and even

more locally, in Prince George’s County. The department has achieved this "out-sized im-

pact" on the scientific an policy-making communities while continuing its unwavering com-

mitment to its undergraduate programs.

History and Research Focus of AASDHistory and Research Focus of AASDHistory and Research Focus of AASD

3 AASD Fall 2013

SSS pecial Eventpecial Eventpecial Event---SymposiumSymposiumSymposium

PrePrePre---K to Prison Pipeline: K to Prison Pipeline: K to Prison Pipeline: Changing the Odds for Boys of ColorChanging the Odds for Boys of ColorChanging the Odds for Boys of Color

T he Pre-K to Prison Pipeline Symposium was conceived by Dr. Odis Johnson (Associate Professor and Interim Chair) and Dr. Joseph Richardson (Associate Professor) in response to the disproportionate number of Boys of

color placed under juvenile justice supervision via the public school system. Gathering nationally renowned scholars on this issue was paramount in raising awareness among academics, practitioners, teachers, administrators, justice offi-cials, community organizations, public school students and activists in the local metropolitan DC community. The event was well attended and based on conversations with several of the individuals and organizations present, this was one of the most informative and engaging symposiums they attended on the Pre-K to Prison Pipeline problem. It was clear-ly one of the largest events sponsored by a department in BSOS since I arrived at UMD in 2006. Every session was full and in some sessions additional seating was needed. We also received a tremendous amount of press coverage. The speakers for the event, in our estimation, are the brightest minds in the nation on this issue. Drs. Pedro Noguera (NYU), Oscar Barbarin (Tulane), Becky Pettit (University of Washington) and Howard Stevenson (University of Pennsylvania) are all nationally acclaimed experts on Black boys, youth development, urban education and the juve-nile/criminal justice systems. The panel was literally an ‘all-star cast’ on these topics. Ruth Zambrana, the moderator for the event, is recognized as one of the academy’s top scholars on race, gender and ethnicity. Dr. Zambrana serves as the director of the Consortium on Race, Gender and Ethnicity here at the University of Maryland. This event provided the opportunity for the community to be critically engaged with academics, a discourse which is often absent in aca-demia. We were particularly impressed by the insightful questions posed by many of the District of Columbia public school students in attendance. Their questions and comments were thought provoking, stimulating and challenging. This vulnerable population is most impacted by draconian zero tolerance policies so it was important that their voices were heard by adults. Although there was plenty of critical discussion about the Pre-K to Prison Pipeline, the event was not merely limited to critical discourse. It was also solution-oriented. Since the event discussions have emerged on de-veloping a research/policy center which specifically examines vulnerable populations of youth in the District of Colum-bia metropolitan area. We plan to continue the momentum on addressing this national problem, we anticipate much more to come.

Stamp Student Union

Atrium Room

September 9, 2013

Moderator: Dr. Ruth Zambrana, University of

Maryland

Panelists: Dr. Pedro Noguera, Peter L. Agnew

Professor of Education, New York University; Dr.

Oscar Barbarin, Lila L. and Douglas J. Hertz

Endowed Chair, Tulane University; Dr. Becky

Pettit, Professor of Sociology, University of

Washington; Dr. Howard Stevenson, Professor of

Education and Africana Studies, University of

Pennsylvania

Co-sponsors: College of Behavioral and Social

Sciences, Office of Diversity and Inclusion, Col-

lege of Education, Department of Psychology,

Department of Sociology, Maryland Population

Research Center, Maryland Center for Health Eq-

uity, Nyumburu Cultural Center, Consortium on

Race, Gender & Ethnicity, and Iota Upsilon Lamb-

da and Iota Zeta Chapters of Alpha Phi Alpha Fra-

ternity, Inc.

Photo courtesy Alexis Goring

Written by Dr. Joseph Richardson

4 AASD Fall 2013

D r. Ira Berlin discussed his book “The Making of African

America: the Four Great Migrations” in the Lucille

Maurer Library to a packed room of students and professors.

Dr. Berlin’s stated that in the years since 1965, when Con-

gress passed and President Johnson signed the Immigration and Nationality Act, the US has

again become an immigrant society. The consequences of that change are a central to con-

temporary American life and politics. Less well known is that black America has also

AGAIN become an immigrant society. The Making of African America: The Four Great

Migrations explores the “Again”— migration as central theme of the African American ex-

perience.

D r. Verna M. Keith (Professor of Sociology and Director

of the Race and Ethnic Studies Institute (RESI) at Texas

A&M University) presented her work February 25th,

2013 in the Lucille Maurer Library. Dr. Keith discussed ideology

of Colorism, the privileging of light over dark complexion and Eu-

rocentric facial features over Afrocentric facial features, which has

played a significant role in determining the economic, social, and

psychological well-being of African Americans.

She identified that recently, two competing views have emerged regarding the continued significance of colorism

with one suggesting that it has declined and the other suggesting that it is becoming more important as the U.S. becomes

more multiracial. Dr. Keith’s study evaluates these two competing views as they relate to the mental health of African Amer-

icans. More specifically, using a race comparative framework, she examines whether black-white differences in mental

health are consistent when complexion is considered and compare these findings to those yielded by other classifications of

African Americans.

AASD Spring Brown Bag SeriesAASD Spring Brown Bag SeriesAASD Spring Brown Bag Series---The Making of African America: The Making of African America: The Making of African America:

The Four Great MigrationsThe Four Great MigrationsThe Four Great Migrations

The Nuances of Blackness: Race, Complexion, and Mental Health The Nuances of Blackness: Race, Complexion, and Mental Health The Nuances of Blackness: Race, Complexion, and Mental Health

Date: Wednesday, February 6th, 2013

Location: Lucille Maurer Library

1126 Taliaferro Hall, College Park, MD 20742

Time: noon-1:00pm

Date: February 25th, 2013

Time: Noon to 1:30pm

Location: 1126 Taliaferro Hall

College Park, MD 20742

Co-sponsors:

Office of Diversity and Inclusion

Department of Sociology

Maryland Population Research Center

5 AASD Fall 2013

D r. Odis Johnson was a panelist for “Academic Achievement: It’s Not So Black

and White” on April 18, 2013 in the Charles Carroll Room-Stamp Student Union.

The panel addressed the following questions: Why do gaps in academic achieve-

ment persist among racial and ethnic groups? How is academic achievement connected to

social, economic, and political forces? What can be done to eliminate inequities related to

academic achievement? The event sponsored by African American Studies and The Department of Sociology

brought together five experts in Education and Sociology to discuss real strategies for addressing these questions

in policy and in practice.

Moderator:

Dr. Patricia Hill Collins, Distinguished University Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Maryland

Panelists:

Dr. Angel Harris, Associate Professor of Sociology, Princeton University

Dr. Karl Alexander, John Dewey Professor of Sociology and Department Chair, John Hopkins University

Dr. Michelle Espino, Assistant Professor, College of Education, University of Maryland

Sponsored by the Departments of Sociology & African American Studies

B arbara Ransby present-

ed her book “Eslanda: The Large and

Unconventional Life of Mrs. Paul

Robeson (Yale University Press, Janu-

ary 8, 2013)” on March 13, 2013 at

the Nyumburu Cultural Center.

Ransby is a historian, writer and long-

time activist. She is a Professor of

African American Studies,

Gender and Women’s Studies, and

History at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) where directs

both the campus-wide Social Justice Initiative and the Gender and

Women’s Studies Program. Professor Ransby is author of the mul-

ti-highly acclaimed biography, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom

Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision.

Ransby’s discussed her deeply researched biography that

chronicles the remarkable events by Mrs. Paul Robeson over her

lifetime. Ransby brought aspects of Essie’s life to the forefront---

life events that were not predominantly known such as her tireless

advocacy of women's rights or her outspoken anti-colonial and

antiracist activist, and an internationally sought-after speaker.

: : :

Co-sponsors: Women’s Studies Department, The Center for Historical Studies and African American Political Culture Workshop

6 AASD Fall 2013

Sangeetha Madhavan is Associate Professor, African-American Studies Department and Associate Director, Maryland

Population Research Center. Dr. Madhavan presented her research on family linkages in South Africa in a panel discussion

on “Comparative Perspectives on Family Complexity” with UMD colleagues, Natasha Cabrera (Human Development)

and Kevin Roy (Family Science). The event was held on April 22, 2013 at MPRC and moderated by Prof. Fran Gold-

scheider (Sociology). Earlier in the year, she presented a paper, “Father Contact Following Union Dissolution for Low

Income Children in Urban South Africa” at the Annual Meetings of the Population Association of America, New Orleans,

April 10-13. Dr. Madhavan also presented a paper on new methods in qualitative research and served as a Discussant at the

General Meetings of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population in that took place on August 2014 in

Busan, South Korea. In addition, she was invited to make presentations on her research at McGill University, Penn State

University and the University of Missouri.

Dr. Joseph Richardson presented “Exploring the Risk Factors for Recurrent Violent Injury, Linkages to Care and

HIV Risk-Related Behaviors Among Young African American Men in Prince Georges Count” as a panelist for Situat-

ing Risk, Home and Health: Qualitative Research Methods Across Disciplines Moderated by Dr. Sheri Parks Associate

Dean for Research, Interdisciplinary Scholarship and Programming, College of Arts & Humanities; Associate Professor, De-

partment of American Studies. The event was held on Wednesday, May 1, 2013 from 2:00pm – 2:00pm in the Maryland

Population Research Center.

On August 8-10 Associate professors Dr. Odis Johnson, Dr. Joseph Richardson, and Research Associate Dr. Christo-

pher St. Vil presented at the 43rd annual meeting of the Association of Black Sociologists. Dr. Richardson and Dr. St Vil’s

presentation: “Situating a Clinical Ethnography of Violent Injury among Young African American Men in an Urban

Trauma Unit,” highlighted the methodological issues some researchers may face when conducting ethnographic research

within a hospital setting. The data for this presentation was derived from and based on their current data collection efforts at

the Prince George’s County Hospital Center. Dr. Johnson’s presentation, “Race-Gender Inequality across Residential

and School Contexts: What can Policy do?” introduced data that demonstrated that the achievement gap between black

and white youth is driven by the educational performance of black boys and that more attention should be focused on enrich-

ing the academic experience of black males. Policy recommendations were offered as to how to educate black boys.

Dr. Gniesha Dinwiddie presented "Residential Segregation and Disparities in Anti-Depressant Use: Evidence from

the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey" at the Academy Health Annual Research Meeting in Baltimore, MD June 22,

2013. The paper examined race specific population adjusted rates of office, inpatient and outpatient physician-patient en-

counters documenting diagnosis of depression and use of antidepressants for its treatment by residential segregation. Princi-

pal findings reveal socioeconomic status, public insurance and physician type (psychiatrist vs. non-psychiatrist) explain

much of the variation in anti-depressant use for African Americans residing in isolated neighborhoods. Implications of the

findings suggest the Affordable Care Act should focus on attracting qualified psychiatrists to practice in undeserved areas

that are segregated and predominantly African American and Latino in order to reduce mental health disparities.

7 AASD Fall 2013

Since the beginning of the year, I have directed two studies on violence and trauma among

young African-American men in Baltimore and Prince George’s County. These jurisdictions

account for 75 percent of the violent assaults and homicides in the state. My first study in Bal-

timore is a secondary data analysis of 191 African-American men admitted to the University of

Maryland Medical Systems R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center for violent injury (gunshot

wound, stabbing or assault). The analysis has produced several significant findings which my

research team (Dr. Christopher St. Vil, Dr. Michael Wagner, Dr. Tanya Sharpe and Dr. Carnell Cooper) and I are

currently drafting a manuscript on that will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal within the next months. One

of our most significant findings is the relationship between incarceration and recurrent violent injury. Ap-

proximately 88 percent of our sample has been incarcerated for six months or more and 58 percent of the sample

has been hospitalized two or more times for violent injury. These findings speak directly to the impact of mass in-

carceration on violence in poor communities. In April 2013 I initiated second research project, a longitudinal eth-

nographic research study of 20 young African-American men (ages 18-34) admitted to the Prince George’s Hospi-

tal Center Trauma Unit for violent injury. Dr. Christopher St. Vil (Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, UMD Depart-

ment of African-American Studies) and Dr. Carnell Cooper (Chief Medical Officer, Prince George’s Hospital

Center) are also Co-Principal Investigators on this study.

The participants were recruited at bedside in the trauma unit. They participate in an in-depth life history interview

three times per year. Participants are also provided a referral for psycho-social services. This pilot study will be

used to inform the development of a larger study of violent injury at trauma units in Baltimore and Prince

George’s County, MD. The data is also being used to develop a hospital-based violence intervention program at

Prince George’s Hospital Center PGHC). Our study at PGHC has been identified as an emerging violence inter-

vention program by the national network of hospital-based violence intervention programs. This network consists

of over 30 hospital-based violence intervention programs that collaborate primarily with university-based hospital

trauma units in major US cities. Our program is called ALIVE1, A Longitudinal Intervention of Violence through

Empowerment. We serve the National Capital Border Area in Prince George’s County, MD. This area situated in

Prince George’s County on the border of the District of Columbia has high rates of violent assault and homicide.

The study at PGHC also examines high risk behaviors among violently injured young African-American men, spe-

cifically HIV risk behaviors. Presently, Maryland ranks 1st among US states in rates of HIV infection. Balti-

more and Prince George’s County are the two regions driving the rates of infection in the state. Thus, our study

examines the intersection between violence and HIV. As the Affordable Care Act becomes law in the state, I am

also examining how young men in the study navigate the new healthcare system. All of the young men in our sam-

ple are uninsured or underinsured.

What I am most proud of is the development of the public service announcements we have created to address gun

violence. I have produced one PSA on gun violence and plan to produce several over the next year. I am also de-

veloping a website, this website will provide data from our current studies as well as national data on violence,

social media and blogging on gun violence. Finally, I was awarded promotion to Associate Professor this year. I

am proud of this accomplished and look forward to my journey towards Full Professor.

AASD Faculty Spotlight: AASD Faculty Spotlight: AASD Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Joseph RichardsonDr. Joseph RichardsonDr. Joseph Richardson

8 AASD Fall 2013

Dr. Odis Johnson, Jr., an Associate Professor in the College of Behav-

ioral and Social Sciences at the University of Maryland is the recipient of

the 2013 Outstanding Review of Research Award from the American Ed-

ucational Research Association, the leading professional association of

education research. He is Interim Chair of the Department of African

American Studies in which he offers courses in program evaluation, poli-

cy analysis, and urban/community studies. With funding from the Na-

tional Academies Ford Foundation Fellowship Program, National Science Foundation,

American Educational Research Association, and the Spencer Foundation, Dr. Johnson has

explored neighborhood influences on racial differences in children’s achievement, and linkages

between neighborhood role modeling opportunities and adolescents’ masculine dispositions to-

ward education. He has published widely within peer-review journals, and serves on the editorial

boards of the Review of Educational Research and the Urban Review. Dr. Johnson frequently

advises private and governmental agencies in the evaluation of social programs, collection and

analysis of data, and budget allocations.

Sangeetha Madhavan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Afri-

can-American Studies and Associate Director of the Maryland Population Re-

search Center, University of Maryland, College Park. Demographer and soci-

ologist by training, her research focuses on family structure and functioning,

children's well-being, parenting, and the social context of HIV/AIDS in the

context of sub-Saharan Africa. Rather than assuming that particular family

structures work better than others, she asks “what arrangements, in their myriad forms, actu-

ally work for children?” Her recent work has appeared in Demography, Fathering, Culture,

Health and Sexuality and the International Journal of Epidemiology and her forthcoming pub-

lications will appear in Journal of Adolescent Research, Journal of Family Issues and Journal

of Southern African Studies. She recently received funding from the National Institutes of

Health to examine the living arrangements of the elderly in rural South Africa and has recently

submitted a proposal for funding to the National Institutes of Health to examine the support net-

works of poor single mothers in slum communities in Nairobi, Kenya .

9 AASD Fall 2013

Professor Sharon Harley is completing a book on The Nexus of Gender, Race and Citizen-

ship in the Lives of Post-Emancipation Black Women and a journal article on “W.E. B. Du

Bois and Gender.” The Du Bois essay was completed with the support from a 2013 UM Gradu-

ate School Summer RASA grant. An associate editor of the journal, Black Women, Gender &

Families, this summer she served on a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship re-

view panel. In the fall, Dr. Harley will join the county executive of Prince George’s County

Rushern Baker on a panel celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Department of History at

Howard University. In addition, she will lead a live, content-based professional development seminar for the Na-

tional Humanities Center (Research Triangle, NC) on “African American Women and Race Relations” for teach-

ers across the U.S. This summer she was asked by Professor Henry Louis Gates, director of Harvard Universi-

ty‘s W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute at The Hutchins Center for African and African American Research and

Dr. Lawrence Bobo, chair of the Department of African and American Studies at Harvard, to deliver the distin-

guished Nathan I . Huggins Lectures at Harvard University. Her upcoming three Huggins Lectures will be pub-

lished by Harvard University Press. Professor Harley will serve as a commentator on the session, “New Perspec-

tives on Twentieth Century African American Women’s History,” at the 2014 annual meeting of the American

Historical Association. She was re-appointed for a fifth term to the Education Task Force by the Maryland State

Superintendent of Public School—in collaboration with the Reginald Lewis Museum of Maryland African History

and Culture. In the 2015-16 academic year, she plans to complete the second half of her fellowship at the

Hutchins W.E. B. Du Bois Center at Harvard University.

Dr. Gniesha Dinwiddie is an Assistant Professor of African American Studies, Faculty Associate at the Mary-

land Population Research Center and Faculty Affiliate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Mary-

land College Park. She is also Associate Faculty at the Hopkins Center for Health Disparities

Solutions, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Dr. Dinwiddie earned a B.A. in Social Sci-

ence from the University of California at Irvine, M.A. in African American Studies from the

University of California at Los Angeles and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Pennsyl-

vania. Prior to coming to the University of Maryland, she was a National Institutes of Health

Post-Doctoral Fellow in Demography in the Office of Population Research at Princeton Uni-

versity. Dr. Dinwiddie is a Medical Sociologist and Demographer with research interests in the

social determinants of health, bio-psycho-social processes of cardiovascular disease risk,

and neighborhoods and health. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, National

Science Foundation, Maryland Population Research Center and the UMD College of Behavioral and Social Sci-

ences. Dr. Dinwiddie’s work appears in the American Journal of Public Health, Social Science and Medicine,

Health Services Research, Medical Care Research and Review, Medical Care, Social Science Quarterly, and

others. Dr. Dinwiddie is currently working on a project that examines biopsychosocial pathways of race/ethnic

disparities in inflammation which is a major indicator of cardiovascular disease morbidity and mortality. "This

research asks What are the pathways leading to differential cardiovascular disease risk for African Americans and

Latinos in the United States?” This research is one of the first interdisciplinary investigations which provides a

critical unexplored piece in the health disparities literature. This project is funded by a seed grant awarded from

the UMD College of Behavioral and Social Sciences. Dr. Dinwiddie will present findings from this project at the

2013 American Public Health Association meetings in Boston in November. Also, on October 18th, Dr. Din-

widdie will be the plenary speaker at St. Agnes Hospital’s Cardiology Symposium in Baltimore, MD.

10 AASD Fall 2013

hristopher St. Vil currently serves as a research associate and adjunct professor at the University of Maryland

at College Park African American Studies Department and the Project Coordinator for the

Men of Faith Preventing Violence against Women Project which is housed at the How-

ard University School of Social Work. Dr. St. Vil received his PhD from the Howard Uni-

versity School of Social Work and his Masters’ degree in Social Work from the State Uni-

versity of New York at Stony Brook. Dr. St. Vil previously served as an adjunct professor at the University of the

District of Columbia and Morgan State University where he taught courses in both social work and criminology.

He serves as a clinical counselor for a Runaway and Homeless Youth Shelter in Virginia, substitute teaches for

DC Public Schools, and is a co-investigator on a research study at the Prince George’s Hospital Center Trauma

Unit examining violence and trauma among young black men. Dr. St. Vil’s research interest include black mas-

culinities, neighborhood effects, domestic violence, HIV/AIDS, and violence and trauma.

Dr. Robert W. Turner II holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from The Graduate Center, CUNY. Currently, Robert is

Research Fellow in the African American Studies Department at the University of Maryland, College Park. After

graduating from James Madison University, Robert played football professionally for three

leagues over a four-year span. Robert is developing a manuscript for Oxford University

Press entitled The NFL means Not For Long: Fame, Fortune, & Equal? This ethno-

graphic project offers a description and analysis of the social worlds of professional foot-

ball players based on the author’s personal experience, interviews with current and former

players, archived resources that discusses the socialization of young athletes, the relation-

ship between the NFL and the NFL Players Association, and how athletes transition from

the NFL to life after football. Though playing in the NFL is often thought of as privileged reserved for only the

best players, this case study suggests ways for examining how race and class refract the experience of athletes. As

a result of his extensive field observations and interviews, Robert is inspired to examine how former NFL athletes

cope with issues such as weight gain and obesity, depression and mental health problems related to sport con-

cussions, and chronic pain associated with osteoarthritis as a result of traumatic sport injury or joint overuse.

11 AASD Fall 2013

Combining work and family, Lillydale village, Mpumalanga Province, South Africa, July 2009

S outh Africa has indeed become a second home to me. Therefore, I want my

children to feel as comfortable there as I do and indeed they do!! I feel very

strongly that the exposure to different cultures ought to start in childhood

for these early experiences leave a lasting positive imprint throughout life. Both my

kids have been fortunate enough to accompany me on many of my trips to South Africa, have made lots of friends,

and have come to love the country. Moreover, both have spent extended periods of time living with me in the vil-

lage shown in this picture where I have developed many close friendships. In fact, two members of one family in

this village actually stayed with me in the U.S. during their visit and even came to see my AASD office on cam-

pus. Contrary to what I was told by friends, my love of travel and spending time outside of the US has not abated

since becoming a mother. All that has changed is that now I have young travelling companions who enable me to

appreciate such experiences in an entirely new way!!

Dr. Sangeetha Madhavan’s Personal Diary ~ excerpts from her research trips to South Africa

T he Gender and Generation

project set out to better un-

derstand how elderly men

and women a rural community cope

with the pressures brought on by

HIV/AIDS. With funding from

CRGE and MPRC, I spent 2 months

in the field with Dana Loll, a UMD

undergraduate (who is now a doc-

toral student at Univ. of Michigan),

conduct-

ing these

inter-

views. In

this pic-

ture, I

(pregnant with my son), am ob-

serving a mock interview between

two of our fieldworkers. These

training sessions are truly collabo-

rative in that I learn as much if not

more than the fieldworkers. For

example, during this training, we

got into really lively debates

around what it means to be “old” in

South Africa and in the U.S. In this

community, it is expected that peo-

ple who are old enough to be your

grandmother or grandfather should

be addressed as “Gogo” (the Zulu

word for grandparent) even if they

are strangers you meet at the gro-

cery store. This makes perfect

sense to me but imagine calling

someone you don’t know “granny”

in the U.S.

Note: Funding for this project was provid-

ed by the National Institutes of Health

(R03) and a seed grant from the Maryland

Population Research Center .

TRAINING SESSION, GENDER

AND GENERATIONS PROJECT,

AGINCOURT VILLAGE, SOUTH

AFRICA, JULY 2007

.

AASD Faculty Research Abroad

12 AASD Fall 2013

African American Studies Department

1119 Taliaferro Hall

College Park, MD 20742

Ph. 301-405-1158

Fax: 301-314-9932

www.aasd.umd.edu

Alumni like our Facebook page to keep updated

on upcoming events and pertinent information

on AASD activities!!!

For questions or comments contact the editor :

Marci Deloatch

Email: mdeloatc@umd.edu

MEET AASD LECTURER’SMEET AASD LECTURER’SMEET AASD LECTURER’S

Jason Nichols is an academic and artist with

a range of interests which include Black

masculinities, hip-hop music and dance, and

Black and Latino identities and relations.

He is the current Editor-in-Chief of Words

Beats & Life: The Global Journal of Hip-

Hop Culture, the first peer-reviewed journal

of Hip-Hop Studies. Dr. Nichols is also a rap

artist who raps under the moniker Haysoos

and is one half of the internationally recog-

nized rap group, Wade Waters.

Jonathan England is a lecturer in the African

-American Studies Department and Doctoral

Candidate in Government and Politics. He

teaches several courses in the African-

American Studies Department, including In-

troduction to African-American Studies,

African-American Politics from Frederick

Douglass to Barack Obama, Race and Sports,

and Washington and Prince George's Histo-

ry, Culture and Politics.

Jonathan England Jason Nichols