Activities
"Program Description"

Language and Diaspora Culture A Rockefeller Foundation Humanities Fellowship Program, 2000-2003 The City University of New York (CUNY) Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean (IRADAC)

The Institute, commonly known by its acronym IRADAC, will host the residency program in conjunction with the CCNY Simon H. Rifkind Center for the Humanities and Arts and the CCNY Colin Powell Center for Policy Studies (CPCPS).


"Language and Diaspora Culture" seeks to foster research into how language both affects and is affected by the cultural conditions of diaspora, and how under these conditions linguistic differences and affiliations interact with other categories of identity, be they geography, race, religion, gender or class. As the linguistic, ethnic, and racial map of the United States becomes increasingly heterogeneous, the work emerging from this research project can inform debate and public policy, particularly in the area of education.


The Rockefeller Foundation Humanities Fellowship Program at City College is built around a research core of 2 visiting fellows, one for a year's residency of 9 months (September to May), and one for a semester's residency of 4 months (either September to December or February to May). In addition, the participation of 5 CUNY fellows per year will be supported by three (3) hours of released time per semester.

Each fellow will be assigned a faculty office either in IRADAC's W.E.B. Du Bois suite in the College's "Y" building or in the North Academic Center which houses the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Conference rooms for group meetings are available both at CCNY and at the CUNY Graduate School and University Center's new facility at 365 Fifth Avenue. Fellows will have library privileges entitling them to use all of the library facilities of the City University, and of course the resources of the New York Public Library, including the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, are also available. Both the College and the University have extensive computer resources that will be available to fellows, and IRADAC has established its own local site for computer-assisted research on the African Diaspora. Health insurance will be provided for those fellows who require it.

The assembled research group of six or seven scholars will meet on a regular basis during the academic year for the purposes of discussing recent research and issues of common interest, sharing work in progress, and meeting with invited guests from both within and beyond the academic community. The group's work will also anchor several public occasions in the course of each year, including lectures by resident fellows, internal fellows, and invited guests, and a public conference to be organized each spring under the program's aegis.

IRADAC will involve students directly in the project by affiliating each fellow with a student research assistant who will receive both the fellows’ mentoring and a $500 stipend each semester.

Applications are invited for one semester and one year fellowships from scholars in a broad range of disciplines, including black studies, ethnic studies, history, literary studies, linguistics, sociology, psychology, anthropology, and philosophy. Applications for 2002-2003 Fellowships must be received by December 3, 2001