MLK Day 2021

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the "March on Washington for Freedom and Jobs" - August 28,1963

The Department of Black Studies Honors the Legacy of Ida B. Wells

On Monday, November 4th, the department hosted "Transcorporeality in Black Atlantic Religions,” a talk with Professor Roberto Strongman. Professor Strongman establishes Transcorporeality as the distinct Afro-Diasporic cultural representation of the human psyche as multiple, removable and external to a body that functions as its receptacle. This unique view of the body, preserved in its most evident form in African religious traditions on both sides of the Atlantic, allows the regendering of the bodies of initiates who are mounted and ridden by deities of a gender different than their own during the ritual ecstasy of trance possession. The talk presented data and analysis from his text, Queering Black Atlantic Religions (Duke University Press, 2019). 

Class of 2019 Social Sciences II Graduation Ceremony, College of Letters and Science

Black Studies professor Jeffrey Stewart has won many accolades for his book The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke 

including the Pulitzer Prize for Biography and the National Book Award!

The Department of Black Studies is located on the third floor of South Hall, room 3631.

Black Studies Majors and Minors can choose to specialize in Cultural Studies, Social Justice Studies, or Gender and Sexuality Studies.

Black Studies at UCSB is rooted in student activism,

as student protests in 1968 led then Chancellor Vernon Cheadle to create the Department of Black Studies.

The Department of Black Studies is rooted in a history of the Black Radical Tradition

and we are building a future in studies of Race and Place, and Gender and Sexuality.

All Black Studies majors complete a senior thesis and students have the opportunity to graduate with Honors in Black Studies.

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Recent News

Professor Sabrina Strings, North Hall Chair in Black Studies, interviewed in TIME Magazine

Professor Sabrina Strings, North Hall Chair in Black Studies, interviewed in TIME Magazine.

Professor Roberto Strongman interviewed in Harper's Bazaar on Italian translation of Queering Black Atlantic Religions: Divinità Queer

Professor Roberto Strongman interviewed in Harper's Bazaar on Queering Black Atlantic Religions Italian translation: Divinità Queer. 

The Black Beauty Effect on Netflix, featuring Professor Sabrina Strings

The Black Beauty Effect on Netflix, featuring Professor Sabrina Strings

Professor Sabrina Strings, North Hall Chair in Black Studies, is featured in The New York Times

Professor Sabrina Strings - Professor and North Hall Chair in Black Studies