During IU’s Spring 2022 semester, our African American and African Diaspora Studies (AAADS) department is celebrating 50+1 years on campus. Founded in 1970 as the Department of Afro-American Studies, AAADS is recognized as one of the oldest Africana Studies departments in the nation. Our 50 year anniversary occurred during the height of COVID-19 in 2020, which is why we have elected to celebrate our 51st year in a big way.

The 50+1 semester celebration includes special lectures, workshops, events, and presentations throughout the spring semester, culminating with our 50+1 reception on Wednesday, April 20 at the IMU University Club and a major daylong symposium scheduled for Thursday, April 21 in the Gayle Karch Cook Center for Public Arts and Humanities.

The symposium is designed to create conversations concerning Black/Africana Studies “Then and Now,” as well as engage in discourses regarding “Where Do We Go From Here?”. Intellectual, pedagogical, practical, and creative exchanges regarding these ideas will happen within the context of a major evolving theory in Black/Africana Studies: Agency Reduction Formation. This theory involves any system of thought that distracts, neutralizes, or reduces the need and desire for assertive collective agency by African Americans and Blacks in the larger African Diaspora.