AASD NEWS


Press Release: African American Studies Department receives Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Conference Grant

Dr. Sharon Harley (Project Director and Associate Professor of African American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park) is pleased to announce that the "Meanings and Representations of Work in the Lives of Women of Color" faculty research seminar has received the distinguished Rockefeller Foundation's International Bellagio Study and Conference Center grant. In August 2004 the Rockefeller Foundation will host the week-long conference entitled 'The Meanings and Representation of Work in the Lives of Women of Color: A Comparative Study" at its Bellagio Center in Lake Como, Italy, situated in the foothills of the Italian Alps. In addition to Project Director Sharon Harley, the conference co-organizer is Lynn Bolles of Women's Studies and African American Studies.

The conference is based on an ongoing Ford Foundation-funded, multi-disciplinary faculty seminar directed by Dr. Sharon Harley and the African American Studies Department. This interdisciplinary project examines issues and processes of globalization, cultural identity, and location in the lives of women workers of diverse ethnicities and nationalities.

During the August 2004 Bellagio conference seminar participants from the U.S. (including such University of Maryland scholars as Sharon Harley, African American Studies; Lynn Bolles, African American Studies & Women's Studies; Elsa Barkley Brown, Women's Studies; Seung-kyung Kim, Women's Studies; Francille Rusan Wilson, African American Studies) will be joined by scholars from South Africa, Ghana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Great Britain. The goal of the research seminar is to provide a unique opportunity for scholars from various international communities to have an engaging discussion about women work and globalization, and to ultimately publish a collective anthology based on conference proceedings.

For more information contact Project Director Sharon Harley or Program Coordinator Sara Irwin at 301-405-1163 or sirwin@aasp.umd.edu.

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