The Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, also known as the Hutchins Center, is affiliated with

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

. The Center supports scholarly research on the history and culture of

people of African descent The African diaspora is the worldwide collection of communities descended from native Africans or people from Africa, predominantly in the Americas. The term most commonly refers to the descendants of the West and Central Africans who were e ...

around the world, facilitates collaboration and aims to increase public awareness of the subject. It was established as the W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute in May 1975, making it the oldest research center focused on the study of the history, culture, and society of Africans and African Americans, with the rebranding as the Hutchins Center occurring in 2013.

Affiliated institutes

The Hutchins Center includes or supports a number of research institutes and projects, including the Hiphop Archive and Research Institute, the Afro-Latin American Research Institute, the Image of the Black Archive & Library, the Project on Race & Gender in Science & Medicine, the History Design Studio and the Jazz Research Initiative. It is also home to the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African & African American Art, also known as the Cooper Gallery.

History

The Center was established as the W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute in May 1975, making it the oldest research center focused on the study of the history, culture, and society of Africans and African Americans. It was named after the first African American to be awarded a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

from Harvard in 1895, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois. It was established to create fellowships that would “facilitate the writing of doctoral dissertations in areas related to Afro-American Studies”. The Hutchins Center was launched in September 2013, named in honor of a $15 million gift from the Hutchins Family Foundation endowed by

Glenn Hutchins Glenn Hutchins is an American businessman and investor. He is a private equity investor focused on the technology sector, chairman of North Island and co-founder of Silver Lake Partners. Career After studying at The Lawrenceville School and grad ...

. It continued to incorporate the W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute.

Description

The Hutchins Center supports scholarly research on the history and culture of people of African descent around the world, facilitates collaboration and aims to increase public awareness of the subject.

Governance

Henry Louis Gates Jr. Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. (born September 16, 1950) is an American literary critic, professor, historian, and filmmaker, who serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African A ...

is the director of the Center.

Publications and projects

The Center publishes ''

Transition Magazine ''Transition Magazine'' was established in 1961 by Rajat Neogy as ''Transition Magazine: An International Review''. It was published from 1961 to 1976 in various countries on the African continent, and since 1991 in the United States. In recent y ...

'', and is connected to the '' Du Bois Review'' (edited by W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard Lawrence D. Bobo). The

African American National Biography Project The African American National Biography Project is a joint project of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University and Oxford University Press. The object of the project is to publish and maintain a database o ...

is a joint project of the Hutchins Center and

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

. The Center supported the establishment of the

Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave-ownership The Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery, formerly the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave-ownership, is a research centre of University College, London (UCL) which focuses on revealing the impact of Britis ...

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

. The Centre's online database, the Legacies of British Slave-ownership, is free for public use.

W. E. B. Du Bois Medal

In 2000, the Hutchins Center began awarding the W. E. B. Du Bois Medal, which is considered Harvard's highest honor in the field of African and African American studies.

References

External links

* {{Harvard University Black studies organizations Harvard University