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A photo of Denison's Women's Lacrosse team in uniform with a large Denison flag bearing the Block D Denison Athletics logo celebrates its Sweet Sixteen victory.

Big Red spring sports highlights

June 13, 2025
A collage of four photos of the Men's Tennis team with their championship trophy, Men's Swim & Dive team with their national championship trophy, Women's Lacrosse team celebrating their season, and the Men's Baseball team gathered for a team photo.

Unprecedented: Inside Denison’s extraordinary year in sports

June 10, 2025
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Hundreds come home to The Hill

June 6, 2025
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Community Learning

A suggested reading list for those interested in educating themselves about issues regarding people of color

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Black Studies



  • About
    About

    An overview and description of the Black Studies department at Denison University.

    • Community Learning
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Denison is committed to educating questioning minds and curious natures. Professors have a wealth of knowledge that they share with students in the classroom. There are times when requests are made for that knowledge outside the campus.

In the spirit of providing a resource to members of the greater community who are interested in educating themselves on issues regarding people of color, the Black Studies Program offers this suggested list of readings, organized by topic.

Show/Hide Biographical

Baldwin, James, and Raoul Peck. I am not your negro. London: Penguin Books, 2017.

Coates, Ta-Nehisi, and Klaus Amann. Between the world and me. Ditzingen: Reclam, Philipp, 2017.

Davis, Angela Y. Angela Davis: an autobiography. New York: International Publishers, 2008.

Delaney, Lucy A. From the darkness cometh the light: or, struggles for freedom. United Kingdom: Dodo Press, 2008.

Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass: an American slave. 2014.

Washington, Booker T. Up from slavery: an autobiography. 2016.

Show/Hide Economics and Class

Day, Keri. Unfinished business: Black women, the Black church, and the struggle to thrive in America. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2012.

Day, Keri. Religious resistance to neoliberalism: womanist and black feminist perspectives. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Hill, Marc Lamont. Nobody: casualties of America’s war on the vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and beyond. New York: Atria Paperback, 2017.

Marable, Manning. How capitalism underdeveloped Black America: problems in race, political economy, and society.

Smiley, Tavis, and Cornel West. The rich and the rest of us: a poverty manifesto. New York: SmileyBooks, 2013.

Show/Hide Criminal Justice

Alexander, Michelle. The New jim crow: mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. Place of publication not identified: New Press, 2016.

McKim Allison. Addicted to Rehab: Race, Gender, and Drugs in the Era of Mass Incarceration. 2017.

Simmons, Lizbet. The prison school: educational inequality and school discipline in the age of mass incarceration. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2017.

Thompson, Heather Ann. Blood in the Water The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy. Vintage Books, 2017.

Watkins, D., and David Talbot. The beast side: living and dying while black in America. New York, NY: Hot Books, 2016.

Show/Hide Health

Agathangelou, Anna M., and A. Vigen. Women, Ethics, and Inequality in U.S. Health Care: “To Count among the Living.”

Follins, Lourdes Dolores, and Jonathan M. Lassiter. Black LGBT health in the United States: the intersection of race, gender, and sexual orientation. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, an imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc., 2017. 

Matthew, Dayna Bowen. Just medicine: a cure for racial inequality in American health care. New York: New York University Press, 2015.

Nelson, Alondra. Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination. University of Minnesota Press, 2011.

Washington, Harriet A. Medical Apartheid The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. Paw Prints, 2010.

Show/Hide Criminal Justice

Alexander, Michelle. The New jim crow: mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. Place of publication not identified: New Press, 2016.

McKim Allison. Addicted to Rehab: Race, Gender, and Drugs in the Era of Mass Incarceration. 2017.

Simmons, Lizbet. The prison school: educational inequality and school discipline in the age of mass incarceration. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2017.

Thompson, Heather Ann. Blood in the Water The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy. Vintage Books, 2017.

Watkins, D., and David Talbot. The beast side: living and dying while black in America. New York, NY: Hot Books, 2016.

Show/Hide Social studies

Dyson, Michael Eric. Tears we cannot stop: a sermon to white America. New York: St. Martins Press, 2017

Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Pluto Press, 2008.

Sharpe, Christina. In the Wake: On Blackness and Being. Duke University Press, 2016.

West, Cornel. Race matters. Boston: Beacon Press, 2001.

Weheliye, Alexander G. Habeas viscus: racializing assemblages, biopolitics, and black feminist theories of the human. Durham: Duke University Press, 2014.

Show/Hide Science

Jordan, Diann. Sisters in science: conversations with black women scientists about race, gender, and their passion for science. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2006.

Roberts, Dorothy. Fatal invention: how science, politics, and big business re-create race in the Twenty-first Century. New York: The new Press, 2012.

Rousseau, Nicole. Black womans burden: commodifying black reproduction. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

Stein, Melissa N. Measuring manhood race and the science of masculinity, 1830-1934. Minneapolis, Minn.: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2015.

Show/Hide Intersectional

Ferguson, Sheila A., and Toni C. King. Black womanist leadership tracing the motherline. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2011.

Johnson, E. Patrick. No Tea, No Shade: New Writings in Black Queer Studies. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016.

Lorde, Audre, and Cheryl Clarke. Sister outsider: essays and speeches. Berkeley: Crossing Press, 2007.

Muñoz, José Esteban. Disidentifications queers of color and the performance of politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015.

Turman, Eboni Marshall. Toward a womanist ethic of incarnation: black bodies, the black church, and the council of chalcedon. Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

Show/Hide Social Justice

Cole, Luke W., and Sheila R. Foster. From the ground up environmental racism and the rise of the environmental justice movement. New York: New York University Press, 2001.

Crenshaw, Kimberle, Neil Gotanda, Gary Peller, and Kendall Thomas, eds. Critical race theory the key writings that formed the movement. New York (N.Y): The New Press, 2010.

Davis, Angela Y., Frank Barat, and Cornel West. Freedom is a constant struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the foundations of a movement. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2016.

Lowery, Wesley, They Can’t Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America’s Racial Justice Movement, 2016.

Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, 2014.

On this page

  • Biographical
  • Economics and Class
  • Criminal Justice
  • Health
  • Criminal Justice
  • Social studies
  • Science
  • Intersectional
  • Social Justice

Spotlights

Denison English professor Diana Mafe

4 questions with English professor Diana Mafe

Mafe talks about her research, teaching practices, and how The Legend of Zelda connects to the liberal arts.
John L. Jackson
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True to its occupant, John Jackson’s office is a quiet space — personal, distinctive.
Winter 2022 cover
Denison Magazine

The ON Switch

Conversations with faculty about what it means to teach — and to trigger those amazing moments of illumination
Students engaging in classroom discussion
How We Learn

Cultural Critique

Students take their learning and engage with current topics as critics — as they become published authors and add to their résumés.
Diana Mafe
How We Learn

New Book by Diana Mafe Examines Race and Gender in Pop Culture

Diana Mafe's book opens a new door in literature - boldly going into science fiction to look at race and gender norms.
Jerome Price ’12
Where We Go

Teaching Is a Calling for Jerome Price ’12

When Jerome Price graduated from Denison University in 2012, he had no doubt where his career path lay.
Victoria Roberts '11
Where We Go

Victoria Roberts ’11, Publishes Work: Forever Under Construction

Victoria Roberts '11 has just published her first book of poetry entitled: Forever Under Construction.
Dr. Anita Waters
How We Learn

Black Studies Professor, Anita Waters, Retires after 25 Years

Dr. Anita Waters is acknowledged at the Center for Black Studies' Senior Symposium for her 25 years of contributions to the program.
lauren_araiza
How We Learn

Research Conducted on Black Women Student Activism of the 1960s

Dr. Lauren Araiza Conducts Research on Black Women Student Activism of the 1960s.
book cover
How We Learn

Jackson & King collaborate in "The Critical Black Studies Reader"

Black Studies Professors John Jackson and Toni King Publish Article in Groundbreaking Text on Black Studies.
Brooke Hayes
Where We Go

Seminarian Brooke Hayes '08 Shares Stories of Ethical Leadership

Brooke Hayes '08 visits Dr. Toni King's Black Women and Organizational Leadership class.
Rhayna Kramer '19
How We Learn

What mixed girls may not tell you

Rhayna Kramer '19 explores "colorism" in today's society.
Imani Congdon
How We Learn

Why Riri Williams, the new "Iron Man," matters

For Imani Congdon '20, the new "Iron Man," a young black woman named Riri Williams, is a hopeful sign.
 elizabeth_siwo_okundi
Where We Go

Elizabeth J. A. Siwo-Okundi '01 awarded Denison Alumni Citation

Elizabeth J. A. Siwo-Okundi '01, a preacher in Boston, has been awarded a prestigious Denison Alumni Citation.
Krumholz
How We Learn

Toni Morrison Scholar, Dr. Linda Krumholz, Ends Term as Director

Dr. Linda Krumholz Returns to English after Directing the Black Studies Program.

What's Happening

University News

2025 Student Commencement Speaker: Jess Cohen ’25

Denison’s 2025 student commencement speaker is Jess Cohen, a history and Black studies double major from Brooklyn, New York.

Read more
Students, Faculty

Black studies students learn through community connections

Students learn through dialogue with the executive director of a national museum and they engage with high school youth.

Read more
In the News

Hollywood’s first major Black female superhero is only a beginning

Professor Diana Mafe says "Wakonda Forever" breaks a mold but its "success does not mean a wider shift in the industry."

Read more
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