# News

**Source**: https://africam.berkeley.edu/topics/news
**Parent**: https://africam.berkeley.edu/news/departmental-spotlight-roderick-jackson

## [Summer 2026 Courses - Registration is open!](/news/summer-2026-courses-registration-open)

March 3, 2026

Francisca Cazares

[Register Now!](https://summer.berkeley.edu/)

**AFRICAM 119**: Media, Digital Platforms, and Language Politics in Africa, Instructor: Dr. David Kyeu, Session D, TWTh 10-1230, in person, CN: 15902

This course explores the intersections of media, digital platforms, and language politics in Africa, with a focus on how language shapes access, representation, and power in the public sphere. Students will analyze both traditional and digital media to examine how these spaces reinforce or challenge...

- [Read more about Summer 2026 Courses - Registration is open!](/news/summer-2026-courses-registration-open "Summer 2026 Courses - Registration is open!")

## [Departmental Spotlight: Roderick Jackson](/news/departmental-spotlight-roderick-jackson)

February 4, 2026

Endria Richardson

*Our February 2026 Departmental Spotlight features Roderick Jackson, a Ph.D. student in African Diaspora Studies, interviewed by graduate student Endria Richardson.*

**Tell me about your work. What do you care about in the world, and how did you come to care about it?**

My doctoral research examines the intersections of race, class, gender, and peri-urban space by interrogating the value of Black male labor in post-industrial Northwest Indiana. Focusing largely on Gary, Indiana—the former steel capital of the United States—I...

- [Read more about Departmental Spotlight: Roderick Jackson](/news/departmental-spotlight-roderick-jackson "Departmental Spotlight: Roderick Jackson")

## [Harriet, Her Nelson, and the North Star Kiss](/news/harriet-her-nelson-and-north-star-kiss)

January 27, 2026

Daphne Muse

A poem by Daphne Muse.

"Harriet, Her Nelson, and the North Star Kiss" was inspired by my deeply held respect for Harriet Tubman and the endearing Kerry James Marshall’s *Still Life with Wedding Portrait*.

"Harriet, Her Nelson, and the North Star Kiss"

*Dedicated to all who know how to embrace, treasure, and love a fierce Black woman.*

Twice “married,” fierce navigator of the night sky

Harriet a descendent, from the continent

where the N’Nonminton—

Dahomean warrior women--

reigned,

sang songs of deliverance...

- [Read more about Harriet, Her Nelson, and the North Star Kiss](/news/harriet-her-nelson-and-north-star-kiss "Harriet, Her Nelson, and the North Star Kiss")

## [Departmental Spotlight: Francisca Cázares](/news/departmental-spotlight-francisca-c%C3%A1zares)

January 15, 2026

Endria Richardson

*Our January 2026 Departmental Spotlight features our undergraduate advisor, Francisca Cázares, interviewed by graduate student Endria Richardson. Francisca also serves at the undergraduate advisor for Gender and Women's Studies.*

**Tell me about your work. What do you care about in the world, and how did you come to care about it?**

Shortly after I graduated from Berkeley in the 90s, I returned to campus to work in my first full time career position where I advised prospective graduate students and managed admissions for the School of Education. And I...

- [Read more about Departmental Spotlight: Francisca Cázares](/news/departmental-spotlight-francisca-c%C3%A1zares "Departmental Spotlight: Francisca Cázares")

## [Alumni Spotlight: Cherod Johnson](/news/alumni-spotlight-cherod-johnson)

January 7, 2026

Barbara Montano

*Cherod Johnson is a recent alum of our Ph.D. program and current Postdoctoral Research Associate at Brown University in the Center for Environmental Humanities.*

**Where are you now and what are you up to? Tell us about your postdoc.**

I am currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Brown University in the Center for Environmental Humanities, and the experience has been genuinely transformative. The position has afforded me the rare luxury to immerse myself deeply in research, teaching, and publishing. The mentorship I have received from Professor...

- [Read more about Alumni Spotlight: Cherod Johnson](/news/alumni-spotlight-cherod-johnson "Alumni Spotlight: Cherod Johnson")

## [Alumni Spotlight: Adriana Green](/news/alumni-spotlight-adriana-green)

December 8, 2025

Barbara Montano

*The Department of African American Studies (AAS) is launching a new series spotlighting alumni of our Ph.D. program. In our first spotlight, AAS Project Manager Barbara Montano intreviews recent Ph.D. program alumna [Adriana Green](https://aas.princeton.edu/people/adriana-green), now a Postdoctoral Research Associate in African American Studies at Princeton University.*

**Where are you now and what are you up to? Tell us about your postdoc.**

I am in New Jersey! I was fortunate...

- [Read more about Alumni Spotlight: Adriana Green](/news/alumni-spotlight-adriana-green "Alumni Spotlight: Adriana Green")

## [Departmental Spotlight: Taye Hughes](/news/departmental-spotlight-taye-hughes)

November 4, 2025

Endria Richardson

*Our November 2025 Departmental Spotlight features one of our undergraduate students, Taye Hughes, interviewed by graduate student Endria Richardson.*

**What are you reading (or watching, or listening to) lately?**

Right now, I’m reading *Sula* by Toni Morrison and *Engendering Blackness* by Patrice Douglass. Admittedly, both reads are in preparation for my classwork, but I’ve enjoyed the writings, nonetheless. And have plans to utilize both in my research going forward. If you...

- [Read more about Departmental Spotlight: Taye Hughes](/news/departmental-spotlight-taye-hughes "Departmental Spotlight: Taye Hughes")

## [The Legacy of Black Love and Preservation: June Jordan's Poetry for the People](/news/legacy-black-love-and-preservation-june-jordans-poetry-people)

November 5, 2025

Joy Wilson

We are excited to announce that the Departments of African American Studies and Gender and Women's Studies at UC Berkeley, in collaboration with Adrienne Torf, Raymond O. Caldwell, and the Fountain Theater of Los Angeles, are hosting a performance of the award-winning *Poetry for the People: The June Jordan Experience* in Berkeley in February 2026. This theater piece is an intimate portrait of the late poet, UC Berkeley professor, and activist June Jordan, told largely through her own poetry, essays, memoir, and interviews. In conjunction with the production,...

- [Read more about The Legacy of Black Love and Preservation: June Jordan's Poetry for the People](/news/legacy-black-love-and-preservation-june-jordans-poetry-people "The Legacy of Black Love and Preservation: June Jordan's Poetry for the People")

## [Darlène Dubuisson Receives 2024 SLACA Annual Book Prize](/news/darl%C3%A8ne-dubuisson-receives-2024-slaca-annual-book-prize)

October 30, 2025

Darlene Dubuisson

Darlène Dubuisson, Assistant Professor of Caribbean Studies in the Department of African American Studies at UC Berkeley, has been awarded the [2024 SLACA Annual Book Prize](https://slaca.americananthro.org/prizes-and-awards/annual-book-prize/) for her book *[Reclaiming Haiti's Futures: Returned Intellectuals, Placemaking, and Radical Imagination](https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/reclaiming-haitis-futures/9781978837393/) ...*

- [Read more about Darlène Dubuisson Receives 2024 SLACA Annual Book Prize](/news/darl%C3%A8ne-dubuisson-receives-2024-slaca-annual-book-prize "Darlène Dubuisson Receives 2024 SLACA Annual Book Prize")

## [Departmental Spotlight: Sam Jean-Francois](/news/departmental-spotlight-sam-jean-francois)

September 29, 2025

Endria Richardson

*Our October 2025 Departmental Spotlight features one of our first-year graduate students, Sam Jean-Francois, interviewed by graduate student Endria Richardson.*

**Do you have an alternate-universe life in which you spend your time doing something totally different from this life? What do you do? Why?**

Oh, that’s easy—I’d be a hair stylist.

Throughout my life, I’ve found so much joy in the intimacy that hair holds. Growing up, I would braid my younger sister’s hair, and it became a structured act of...

- [Read more about Departmental Spotlight: Sam Jean-Francois](/news/departmental-spotlight-sam-jean-francois "Departmental Spotlight: Sam Jean-Francois")

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