New Chloe Center Working Groups Established

"Book Bloc" marching with yellow, red, and green book shields held aloft

Beginning Fall 2024, the Chloe Center for the Critical Study of Racism, Immigration, and Colonialism will support new working groups. The Program in Racism, Immigration, and Citizenship had a long tradition of supporting graduate working groups, and a grad-undergrad working group on Anti-Racist Alliances formed in 2021 helped lead to the creation of our new major Critical Diaspora Studies.

Working groups convene meetings in person, plan events, and organize reading groups and research presentations. Refreshments and complimentary books are available to participants.

  • Palestine Reading Group

    The Palestine Reading Group meets biweekly to discuss recent major scholarship on the ongoing violence, oppression, and dispossession of Palestinians. The purpose of this group is to create space for collective inquiry into questions of gender, sexuality, race, and colonialism in historical and contemporary Palestine. The reading group is open to undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs, and faculty from JHU and nearby universities.

    Meetings will be held the following Wednesdays at 5:15 pm: Oct. 2, Oct. 16, Nov. 6, Nov. 20, Dec. 4. Please contact wgs [at] jhu [dot] edu to join.

    Co-sponsored by the Program for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality and the Chloe Center.

  • Critical Carceral Studies Working Group

    The Critical Carceral Studies Working Group meets weekly to discuss recent major books published in Police and Prison Studies particularly, but also drawing from Political Science, Sociology, History, Geography, Black Studies, and related fields. The purpose of the group is to keep up to date with research in Police and Prison studies, learn new methodologies and frameworks for doing Critical Carceral Studies research, and explore the inherent interdisciplinarity of the field.

    The Working Group is open to graduate students, postdocs, staff, and faculty from JHU and nearby universities. Meetings will be held every Tuesday from 2pm to 4pm (beginning Oct. 1), and a reading schedule is available upon request to Quinn Lester qlester1 [at] jhu [dot] edu.

  • Critical Diaspora Studies Working Group

    The undergraduate-led Critical Diaspora Studies Working Group is open to students interested in questions of migration, colonialism, diaspora, and more. The CDS group organizes and sponsors events, advises the faculty on curricular issues related to the new major, and collaborates with other student groups, including the Inter-Asian Council, Black Student Union, Caribbean Cultural Society, and more.

    Undergraduate students interested in joining should get in touch with Vanessa Han vhan3 [at] jhu [dot] edu. All undergraduate students are welcome to enroll in Critical Diaspora Studies courses, which will become available in Spring 2025.

Additional working groups are in development, and we will share information as it’s ready. If you are a JHU graduate or undergraduate student interested in forming a working group/reading group that pertains to the themes of the Chloe Center for the Critical Study of Racism, Immigration, and Colonialism, please reach out.