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Research and Creativity
The David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture
of African Americans and the African Diaspora aims to promote innovative
approaches to the study of culture and social life in African communities
and communities of African descent.
| Research@Maryland | New
Generations | Fellows | Faculty Learning Community
The Driskell Center's Community
The University of Maryland is home to a diverse and creative student body and faculty committed to exploring the cultural and social life of Africa and the Afro-Atlantic world. The Driskell Center strives to enrich and enhance a sense of learning and shared purpose among all members of the campus community. The Center moreover seeks to reach beyond the campus to art practitioners and colleagues in nearby institutions, art institutions, immigrant communities, and grade-school children and their teachers and parents in surrounding counties in Maryland and the District of Columbia. Finally, our goal is to collaborate with artists, scholars, and students throughout the United States and abroad, reaching the public through programs, publications, and our website.
In 2003-2004, the Driskell Center has teamed up with the International Center for Transcultural Education, a research unit of the College of Education, to sponsor a series of open discussions about "Africa in the Schools." Spring 2004 Program Flier.
The Driskell Center has also joined The Art Gallery in sponsoring an intern to develop and lead arts education programs for area middle-schoolers who have attended the Mary Lovelace O'Neal (Spring 2004) and Selections from Narratives (Spring 2003) exhibitions.
In previous years, the Driskell Center has joined the Committee on Africa and the Americas in offering financial support for "Rethinking the Americas," a three-year collaboration between the Department of History and the Montgomery County Public Schools. Our support helped History Professors Mary Kay Vaughan and Elsa Barkley Brown develop a module entitled "Teaching the History of Racial Minorities in Mexico and the United States." Learn more.
Research@Maryland
The Center's commitment to research and creativity builds upon the achievements
of faculty and students who have worked to make the University of Maryland
a major research institution. Through a collaboration with other University
of Maryland departments such as the African-American
Studies Department, the Latin
American Studies Center, the
English Department, the Department
of History, Department of
Spanish and Portuguese, and the Department
of Women's Studies, the University is a recognized leader in African,
African American, and Afro-Atlantic research and creative activities,
and is at the forefront of public policy research in a range of fields
of interest to scholars and students of Africa and the African diaspora.
Cultivating New Generations of Scholars, Artists, and Performers
In helping to found the Center, Distinguished University Professor Emeritus
David C. Driskell called upon academe to
cultivate new generations of artists and scholars of the African diaspora.
Answering this call, the Center seeks to enrich research at Maryland in
the humanities, social sciences and in artistic expression, particularly
through the support of projects that take up innovative, interdisciplinary
and transnational approaches to the complex aesthetic, social, and political
questions raised by African and African diasporic identities.
Creative achievements supported by the David C. Driskell Center include
the establishment of an annual Distinguished Lecture in the Visual Arts
and a number of museum exhibitions including Successions:
Prints by African American Artists from the Jean and Robert Steele Collection
(Spring 2002), Selections
from Narratives of African American Art: The David C. Driskell Collection
(Winter-Spring 2003), Bridges: Students of David C. Driskell from
the University of Maryland, 1977-1997 (Spring 2003), Mary
Lovelace O'Neal, (Spring 2004), Faith Ringold: Mama Can Sing, Papa Can Blow, (Fall 2005), and David C. Driskell: Fragments of Color, (Spring 2006).
Graduate and Postdoctoral Fellowship Programs
The 2007-2008 new Visiting Scholars program, in collaboration with various
departments across the University, is under development. Position descriptions
and deadlines will be posted on this site. Please continue to monitor this site
for updates. This program replaces the former post-doctoral program.
In 2002-2003, the David C. Driskell Center welcomed its first group of
graduate and postdoctoral fellows. Every year since, our fellows have
continued to make the Center a home for research and debate on new tools
and languages to understand African and African American identity and
creativity. As a collective they help to meet Dr. Driskell's challenge
to "grow the field."
2004-2005 Fellows
- Hisham Aidi, Postdoctoral Fellow
- Huda Mustafa, Postdoctoral Fellow
- Barbara Shaw Perry, Graduate Fellow
- Rhondda Thomas, Graduate Fellow
2003-2004 Fellows
2002-2003 Fellows
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