Professor of Sociology Mary Osirim has joined an advisory committee for and will be a seminar participant in an interdisciplinary African Diaspora studies research seminar that will examine the impact and interplay of nationality, ethnicity, and gender among first- and second-generation African immigrants as well as U.S. native-born African Americans.
The two-year project is led by African American Studies Professor Sharon Harley at the University of Maryland and funded by a $500,000 Mellon Foundation grant. The seminar brings together a group of 15 distinguished scholars from a broad range of universities (including Columbia, Cornell, NYU, Howard, Boston College, and the University of Ghana among others) and three graduate students. Research projects will be presented at several of the participating universities as well as public venues such as the National Museum of African Art, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Four seminar meetings are planned, beginning this month and concluding in September 2021. Final projects developed in this seminar include academic essays, visual images/photographs, and digital humanities projects. Undergraduate students who attend colleges and universities in the regions where the seminar is held are also selected to give panel presentations on their research and campus experiences based on the themes of the seminar.
Osirim's research focuses on gender and development, economic sociology, immigration, race, ethnic relations, sociology of gender, and the family.