Last month, the Department of African American & African Studies at The Ohio State University hosted its inaugural summer residency program. Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the program gathers doctoral students and professors from across the country to our Columbus campus for conversation, exchange, and training around a specific theme. For this first workshop, our theme was the “Intersections of Carceral Studies and Black Studies.”

From Wednesday 16 July to Monday 21 July, fourteen scholars—eight doctoral students, three OSU professors, and three visiting professors—convened for the short-term workshop, where they discussed emerging scholarship in carceral studies and presented their research to each other. In addition, the residency’s programming featured a series of talks from Orisanmi Burton, Christophe D. Ringer, and Max Felker-Kantor, who each shared their recently completed monographs. On Friday 18 July, Professor Burton delivered a public lecture and conversation session at our Community Extension Center based on his book Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt.

A team of OSU faculty and staff planned and coordinated this workshop: Monica Stigler, Thea Bailey, V.N. Trinh, Shavagne Scott, Michael R. Fisher Jr., and Maxamed Abu-Maye.