Past TASS Topics & Faculty
Past TASS Topics & Faculty
Telluride Association Sophomore Seminars (TASSes) were one of the very first summer programs focusing on Critical Black Studies. They started at Indiana University in 1993 and were also held over the years at Cornell University and the University of Michigan. After a year’s hiatus due to COVID and for reorganization, they and our Summer Programs (TASPs) were superseded by the new Telluride Association Summer Seminars, to be premiered in 2022.
Over the course of nearly 30 years, TASS transformed the lives of nearly 1,000 young people from around the world. Dozens of faculty from a wide variety of disciplines taught our seminars, and many cite the experience as a teaching career highlight. Here is a list of the seminar titles and faculty, from the very beginning to our online program in 2020. TASS’s legacy lives on in the new TASS-Critical Black Studies component of the Telluride Association Summer Seminars.
Here is a list of the TASS seminar titles and faculty, from the very beginning to our online program in 2020.
2023
Cornell TASS-AOS: Land, Power, Stewardship: Agri/culture and Environmentalism in the Global South
Cornell TASS-AOS: Watering Down and Silencing Stories: How the White Gaze Changes Social Movements
University of Maryland TASS-CBS: Comparative Black and Native American Literature and Popular Culture
University of Maryland TASS-CBS: The Personal is Political: Autobiography, Activism, and Alternative Knowing
University of Michigan TASS-AOS: Beyond the Grind: Feminist and Disability Theories of Care, Love, Rest, and Resistance
2022
Cornell TASS-CBS: Black Freedom Beyond Borders
Cornell TASS-AOS: Imagining Better Futures
Maryland TASS-CBS: Artist as Activist: Black Literature and Visual Art in the 20th Century
Maryland TASS-AOS: Art at the End of the World: Crisis and Creation in the 1990s
Michigan TASS-CBS: Black Geographies: Race, Place, and Space in Space
Michigan TASS-AOS: Race and the Limits of Law in America
2020
2020 summer programs were held online due to the COVID pandemic.
Cornell I: Black Protest from Slavery to #BlackLivesMatter
Cornell II: Testify: The Politics of Imagination, Fantasy, and Magic
Michigan I: “Whose Streets?! Our Streets!” The Legacy of Youth Organizing in Black Liberation Movements
Michigan II: AfroAsian Cultures and Media
2019
Cornell I: Blackness Remixed: Genre and Adaptation in Contemporary Literature, Music, and Film
Cornell II: Black Feminist Thought
Michigan I: Black Movements
Michigan II: Reconceptualizing Black Geographies: The Politics of Race, Space, and Home
2018
Cornell I: Mediated Lives: Performing Identity in Contemporary Media
Cornell II: Shades of Blackness: Exploring Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the African Diaspora through Performance, Film, Music, and Art
Michigan I: The Cultural Politics of Race in Media and Literature
Michigan II: African American Mobility and Travel Abroad: From Paul Cuffee to Ta-Nehisi Coates
2017
Cornell I: The Opposite House: Grieving Time in Space and Place
Cornell II: Black Feminist Thought
Michigan I: Coming of Age within the Long Black Freedom Movement
Michigan II: Performance, Gender, Race and Culture in the Harlem Renaissance and in Parisian Negritude
2016
Cornell I: Are You an American Citizen? A History of a Complicated Question
Cornell II: Exploring Cultural Identity Through the Music of the Harlem Renaissance, Soul and Social Protest Movements, and Contemporary Hip Hop
Indiana: The Black Struggle for Freedom: An Interdisciplinary Perspective
Michigan: In Search of Identity: Performance of Blackness and Representations of Gender and Sexuality
2015
Cornell: Ascending Melody: Contemporary African American Creative Arts and Critical Thought
Indiana: Growing Up While Black: Coming of Age in Black Literature, Music, and Film
Michigan: Dreams of Freedom and Realities of Confinement
2014
Indiana: Health Disparities: The Importance of Gender, Race/Ethnicity, and Social Class.
Michigan: Comparing and Performing Black Theatre.
2013
Indiana: Race Films in a ‘Post-Race’ America? Film Studies and Critical Spectatorship.
Michigan: Race, Ethnicity, and Difference in Modern Medicine and Society.
2012
Indiana: Don’t Believe the Hype: Facing Cultural Misinformation about African Americans with Historical and Legal Truths.
Michigan: Mass Incarceration: Race, Punishment, and Contemporary Urban America.
2011
Indiana: Blackness, Media, and Self-Concept.
Michigan: Intergenerational Memory in U.S. Literature.
2010
Indiana: Blackness, Literature, and the Media.
Michigan: Poverty, Environment, Work, and Social Inequality in America.
2009
Indiana: Health and Illness in the African American Community: Social and Neurobiological Perspectives.
Michigan: Imaging Race in Literature and Visual Culture.
2008
Indiana: Social Identity in Contemporary African American and LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender) Theatre.
Michigan I: Pros and Cons of “Getting Involved” – Community Participation in Multicultural Communities.
Michigan II: Imagining the Congo, Performing African History and Culture.
2007
Indiana: Modern Sports and the African American Experience.
Michigan I: American Politics and Culture: Left and Right.
Michigan II: Infectious Disease Detectives: Fighting Epidemics Using the Right Tools.
2006
Indiana: Civic Engagement and African American Youth.
Michigan I: Bridging the Atlantic: Music and Media in the African Diaspora.
Michigan II: Black Multiculturalism: Harlem’s World 1919-1940.
2005
Indiana: Films of the African American Experience: An Introduction to Film Studies.
Michigan I: Race, Space, and American Identity.
Michigan II: Who Deserves to Get Well? Public Health at the Crossroads of Science and Social Values.
2004
Indiana: Conflicting Visions: A History of African American Political Thought and Action.
Michigan: Slavery, Emancipation, and the Formation of Multicultural Societies in Brazil and the U.S.
2003
Indiana: Constructing “Race”: Society and Law.
Michigan: Social Identities and the Mass Media.
2002
Indiana: Does My Vote Count: African Americans and the Struggle for Political Representation.
Michigan: Reading the Body through Ethnicity, Racism, Gender, and Power.
2001
The African Diaspora: Music, Dance, and History.
2000
Understanding Black and Multiracial Political History in the New Millennium.
1999
Law, Race, and Society: Demythologizing Common Notions of Legal Order.
1998
Demythologizing Africa: Transatlantic Musical Crossroads.
1997
African-Americans in the Political System: A Historical and Political Analysis.
1996
African-American Arts and Social Life: Exploring Their Influence on Each Other.
1995
Contemporary Media Representations of the African-American Community.
1994
Self and Society: African-American Autobiographical Writings.
1993
Play and Performance: African-American Music and Sports in the Twentieth Century.