The purpose of the Global Black Studies Project is to develop curricula and programs that robustly cast the study of Black Life in global terms. As a long-term undertaking situated within the Department of Africana Studies at Rutgers-Newark, the GBSP seeks to respond to local specificity of global realities by recognizing the international and multi-ethnic character of our students, faculty, and surrounding community. For both pedagogical and substantive reasons, connection therefore is a key term for our efforts and interests. Between June 2024 and December 2024, I, Wendell Marsh, and graduate workers in the American Studies program Dominique Rocker and Sydni Ratliff-Phillips worked towards these ends.

While Black thought has long been characterized by diasporic, internationalist, and trans-national perspectives in the pursuit of justice, professional scholars within Africana, African-American, African Studies and other similar fields are increasingly embracing a global framework for their endeavors. One of the many attractions of the global framework is its potential to go beyond national citizenship and its territorial logics as the indispensable condition of human belonging. Understood as the inquiry into local-global interactions, connective and comparative scholarship, and multi-scalar thinking, global studies promise to equip the study of Black Life with the tools necessary to confront the major, and often wicked, problems of our times: pandemics, pending ecological collapse, the migration crisis, and rising trans-national racial populism. But how to bring Black studies and global studies into conversation remains fertile ground for experimentation, particularly at the level of undergraduate learning and graduate training. 

The Global Black Studies Project at Rutgers-Newark seeks to develop strategic interventions in this area through iterative evidence-based curricular development, local and global experiential learning opportunities, and collaborative partnerships with community organizations in Newark and internationally. With its host of programs and personnel across the School of Arts and Sciences-Newark, particularly Africana, American, and Global Urban Studies, and one of the most diverse student bodies in the country, our campus is well positioned for such a project. Furthermore, established relationships with community partners in Newark and in Senegal, West Africa will facilitate a quick start of our efforts. Indeed, we have already begun this work. The success of the GBSP promises to make Rutgers-Newark a leader in Africana studies pedagogy, enliven the student experience, and contribute to the campus community.

At the departmental level, the objective of the GBSP is to increase course enrollments, the number of majors and minors,  and to collect data that might inform future changes to the curriculum by transforming Africana 111 and 112 from being “introductory” content courses into exciting gateways to global Black study.