A CRES student at UCM created a podcast episode for UC Merced’s Center for Africana Studies (CAS) titled "What is Africana Studies?"
In this episode (link below) Sonja Andrews Soto talks with CRES Professor Nicosia Shakes and CRES student Jaylin Doxey about Africana Studies and why it matters. /e/what-is-africana-studies/
The Center for Africana Studies is very happy to announce our fellowship symposium, where CAS graduate student fellowship scholars will share their research projects.
This event will take place on Monday, April 20, 1-3pm in COB2-290.
Lunch will be served.
Please come by the symposium to be in community with CAS grad student fellows and learn about their fascinating research - and bring your friends!
"Black California Dreamin’: Stories of Claiming Space at America’s Leisure Frontier" w/ Dr. Alison Rose Jefferson
April 9, 2026 | COB2 290 | 12-1:30pm
Lunch will be provided!
Join a program with publicly engaged independent Historian and Heritage Conservation Consultant Dr. Alison Rose Jefferson where she will share stories about how African Americans during the Great Migration and Jim Crow era from the 1900s to1960s created recreational and relaxation spaces at Southern California beaches and inland places. These stories are drawn from her recent book, "Living the California Dream: African American Leisure Sites during the Jim Crow Era" (University of Nebraska Press), which won the 2020 Miriam Matthews Ethnic History Award from the Los Angeles City Historical Society.
https://cas.ucmerced.edu/events
This Friday!! San Francisco’s award-winning PUSH Dance Company @pushdance brings its distinctive fusion of contemporary dance, Afrofuturism, and multimedia performance to Merced for one evening only. Founded and choreographed by Raissa Simpson, the company is recognized for work that integrates hip hop aesthetics with experimental movement and digital technology. The program features works that traverse science fiction, cultural memory, and social justice.
Co-presented with UC Merced’s Center for Africana Studies @ucmcas .
The 2025/26 UC Merced Arts Season is co-sponsored by UC Merced’s Division of Equity, Justice, & Inclusive Excellence (EJIE) @ucm_ejie .
📅 Friday, April 3, 2026 | 7:30 PM
📍 Merced Multicultural Arts Center (The MAC)
🎟 $15 GA Tickeys (free for students and children!)
Link in bio for tickets!
April 16, 2026 | COB2-290 | 11:30am - 2:15pm
*Includes lunch plus a book giveaway!*
This panel will showcase interdisciplinary work by emerging scholars, with a focus on the role of kinship and maritime life in the African diaspora, followed by a professionalization panel/Q&A on life after graduate school. This panel is organized by Dr. Viviana Quintero Marquez, President's Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Merced, and Dr. Amanda Faulkner, the SlaveVoyages.org Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Merced.
11:30am-1:00pm: "Kinship in the Black Atlantic" research discussion and Q&A
1:15pm - 2:15pm: "Life after grad school" professionalization panel and Q&A (for graduate students)
This event is co-sponsored with the Center for the Humanities.
Get your tickets now for PUSH Dance Company’s groundbreaking performance at The MAC on Friday, April 3 at 7:30 PM. Blending contemporary dance, technology, and storytelling, this award-winning San Francisco-based dance company performs in Merced for one night only!
@pushdance
🗓️ Friday, April 3 at 7:30 PM
📍 Merced Multicultural Arts Center (The MAC) @mercedcountyarts
🎟️ $15 General Admission | FREE for college students (w/ID) and children! Available online (link in bio) and at the door 30 minutes before the performance.
Co-presented with UC Merced’s Center for Africana Studies (CAS) @ucmcas
The 2025/26 UC Merced Arts Season is co-sponsored by UC Merced’s Division of Equity, Justice, & Inclusive Excellence (EJIE) @ucm_ejie
Join the UC MRPI "Routes of Enslavement in the Americas" Project for the public launch of TrayectoriasAfro.org, a website that examines the movement of free and enslaved people in Mexico, California, and the US Southwest. This digital humanities project shows the migration of thousands of African-descended people in Mexico. The symposium includes presentations, a film screening of Coronas Negras, and engaging discussions on historical and contemporary Afro-Mexicans, Afro-Latine People, and Afro-Latinidades.
*Lunch and Dinner will be provided. Please register because space is limited! /forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdKgvJKXfPw9uEL8t28IXVUOsDzzaDs8PWbSX9ryQ8mVhC9Fw/viewform
Public Launch of Trayectorias Afro
Date: March 6, 2026 | 1:30-3 p.m. | UCM COB2 Room 290
Screening of Coronas Negras + Community Conversation
Date: March 6, 2026 | 6-8:30 p.m. | The Mainzer, Merced
Guest speakers:
Sabrina Smith, Professor, UC Merced
Alex Borucki, Professor, UC Irvine
Anthony Jerry, Professor, UC Riverside
Brisa Smith Flores, Professor, UC Santa Barbara
André Lo Sánchez, Afro-Mexican Filmmaker-Activist
Diana Pinacho, Researcher, Visual Storyteller, and Community Activist
UCM's 2026 Black Excellence Symposium is Saturday, February 21 and is open to all students, staff, faculty, and community members. Please RSVP by following the QR Code on the flyer or by following this link: /jfe/form/SV_0NhlZF0OZH4vJ30
For questions or additional information, please contact [email protected]
Dr. Sylvia Croese: “Cities without citizens: Reconfiguring law and local power in urban Angola"
February 23, 2026 / COB2 290 / 12:30-2 PM
https://cas.ucmerced.edu/events
The Center for Africana Studies welcomes Dr. Sylvia Croese, who will give a talk titled “Cities without citizens: Reconfiguring law and local power in urban Angola." Dr. Sylvia Croese is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Global and International Studies at the University of California, Irvine. Trained as an urban political sociologist, her work examines the intersection of urban politics, planning and governance in African cities. She is the author of Gradualist lawfare: The politics of law and local power in urban Angola (forthcoming with Oxford University Press), which situates the persistent deferral of local democracy in Angola within wider debates around the contested nature of local government in Africa and the global rise of authoritarian lawmaking in cities.
*Martin Luther King Junior Unity March*
January 19, 2026
For more info:
[email protected]
209-205-5876
And see article "‘Immeasurable’: Merced to unite for the 29th annual MLK march and celebration" here: /immeasurable-merced-unites-for-the-29th-annual-mlk-unity-march-and-celebration/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=IN%20FOCUS%3A%20Merced%20to%20unite%20for%20the%2029th%20annual%20MLK%20march%20and%20celebration&utm_campaign=Jan%20%205%20IN%20FOCUS%20%20%28Copy%29
