The new Critical Diaspora Studies (CDS) undergraduate major is launching Spring 2025, and its roster of courses has now been announced. Among these are four new courses primarily listed in CDS, as well as a dozen other cross-listed courses in Anthropology, Sociology, Modern Languages and Literatures, History, and more. Registration for Spring 2025 courses begins on November 8, 2024 for seniors.

Students will also be able to newly declare as CDS majors during the spring semester.

One of the new courses, Methods in Critical Diaspora Studies, taught by Prof. Nathan Connolly (Herbert Baxter Adams Associate Professor of History), fulfills the major’s methods requirement. Typically, this course will be offered in spring semesters, as a companion to the required Introduction to Critical Diaspora Studies, which be offered initially in Fall 2025.

Prof. Connolly remarked:

Most intellectual breakthroughs of any civic and lasting relevance depend on deploying a rigorous analytic method. As the inaugural instructor of the Critical Diaspora Studies methods course, I’m excited to familiarize our students with the kinds of systematic thinking that paved the way for reparative research, socially responsible innovation, and decolonial struggle.

Other new courses include:

• Humanities Research Lab: The Black Panther Party and the Politics of Decolonization
• Insurgent Interdisciplines: Critical Diaspora Studies in Historical Context
• Freedom Education: Embodied Speculative History of Maryland Schools for African Americans in the 1800s

Natalie Wang (’24), one of the founders of the Critical Diaspora Studies initiative, which advocated for the creation of this new major, was excited to learn about the new course offerings. She explained:

To see any dream realized is a rare and beautiful thing. Kobi Khong (KSAS ’24), Joyce Wang (KSAS ’23), and I—founders of the student-led initiative for CDS—would reapply to Hopkins undergrad just to take these courses. We are so thankful to the students and faculty in CDS and the Chloe Center for their solidarity, leadership, and support. We look forward to years of growth as this major blooms.

CDS courses generally fall into four tracks: Borders and Migration; Global Indigeneities; Empires, Wars, & Carceralities; and Solidarities, Social Movements, and Citizenship. All of the new CDS courses, as well as cross-listed courses, will fulfill some of the track requirements for the major. Typically, students majoring in CDS will choose a track as a focus and then take a selection of other courses outside that track.

Over the coming years, additional CDS courses will become available, including new community-engaged opportunities. And research funding for CDS students, including summer research awards, will be available from the Chloe Center. The first round of undergraduate summer research award winners will present on their findings on Tuesday, October 29.

Stuart Schrader, director of the Chloe Center for the Critical Study of Racism, Immigration, and Colonialism, confirmed that all of the center’s faculty affiliates are pleased to start this next chapter of the Center’s life on campus, bringing a longstanding plan to fruition at last.