More than 1,000 people attended a colloquium last week organized by Colin Palmer, Dodge Professor of History, entitled "The State of Black Studies: Methodology, Pedagogy, and Research."
Palmer said he was "very gratified, very surprised and very pleased" at the turnout for the conference, which marked the first attempt in 20 years to bring together academics from across the country to discuss the current state of African-American studies.
The event, which was cosponsored by the University Program in African-American Studies and The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, was free and open to the public and ran from Thursday evening through Saturday evening. It was held at the Schomburg Center in Harlem.
Nearly one-third of the 600 people who arrived for the opening session had to be turned away as the auditorium could only accommodate the first 400, said Palmer, who was expecting a crowd of no more than 200. There was a capacity crowd at the final session of the conference as well, he said.
After attending two successful but smaller conferences during the past two years, Palmer and others began to plan for this event 10 months ago.
The conference brought together students and faculty from more than 50 colleges and universities nationwide.
Between the opening and closing speeches, there were 25 panels run by more than 100 participants, at least four of whom were members of the University community.
"This is very much the moment to renew the transformative mission Black Studies," said James de Jongh, director of the City University of New York Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean, in a University press release.
"My hope is that some of the individuals who have been in the field for some sustained period of time will discuss the origins of the field and the kinds of concerns that brought Black Studies into existence in the first place," said Howard Dodson, chief of the Schomburg Center, in the press release.
Both the papers and discussions were excellent, said Palmer, who characterized the presentations as "insightful, informative and provocative."
The colloquium provided a chance to step back and appreciate the progress made over the last half century in African-American studies.
Before the 1960's, African-American studies was either entirely absent or drastically underrepresented in University curricula, Palmer said.
Since then, "Black Studies has revolutionized the entire national university curriculum [nationwide] particularly in social science and humanities," he said.
After the conference's success this year, Palmer said there would surely be another next year. While he said he was "still recovering" from last week's events, Palmer said next year's goal would be to take stock of "contemporary Black conditions."
"We still have a long way to go, and we still have to continue to press universities to accord such studies the respectability they deserve," Palmer said.
"We hope ultimately a place like Princeton will continue to take the lead in defining the future of black studies," he said.
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