Contact Us

All inquiries can be directed to the BRES Program Manager, Allen Hillery at allen.hillery23@login.cuny.edu.

BRES Collaboration Hub: A Multidisciplinary CUNY Graduate Center Initiative

Established in 2023, the BRES Collaboration Hub serves as the intellectual home for faculty and doctoral students interested in interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and transdisciplinary research and education in BRES. The Hub provides support for the development and implementation of a multidisciplinary graduate program in Black, Race, and Ethnic Studies leading to a Ph.D. and an M.A. in BRES.

The Ph.D. program in BRES will be a stand-alone, discipline-plus Ph.D. degree program. Put simply, BRES Ph.D. students will be fully trained in a traditional discipline of their choice while also gaining intellectual exposure to the multidisciplinary training in BRES. The BRES Ph.D. program is structured such that BRES faculty and students will enhance and invigorate existing disciplinary programs through the infusion of new intellectual energy and the inclusion of the BRES multidisciplinary perspectives. The BRES graduate program will focus on the following thematic clusters:

1. Race, gender, sexuality, and intersectionality

2. Race, ethnicity, and immigration

3. Race, diasporas, and transnationalism

4. Race, equality, and social justice

5. Race, indigeneity, and decolonial studies

6. Race, representation, and cultural studies

This new BRES graduate program is the culmination of planning efforts that began in 2020 when CUNY launched the Black, Race, and Ethnic Studies Initiative with $3 million in funding from the Mellon Foundation. In 2024, the Mellon Foundation reaffirmed its commitment to BRES at CUNY with an additional $5 million in funding to support the BRES Ph.D. program. This will be the first program of its kind within the New York metropolitan and will position CUNY as a leader in the multidisciplinary scholarship of race and ethnic studies.

The recent $5M Mellon award was announced on March 26, 2024.

The 2023-2024 BRES Fellows were announced on April 3, 2023.

The initial $3M Mellon gift was announced on August 13, 2020.

Black, Race, and Ethnic Studies Collaboration Hub:
Two Spring 2024 Professional Development Series

Faculty Fellows Professional Development Series
Spring 2024, Thursdays, 4 to 5:15 p.m. via Zoom

Download Schedule: BRES Faculty Fellows Series

Doctoral Fellows Professional Development Series
Spring 2024, Fridays, 12 to 1:15 p.m. via Zoom

Download Schedule: BRES Doctoral Fellows Series

BRES Fellow, Sergio Palencia Frener, Accepts
Assistant Professor Position at Williams and Mary

Congratulations Sergio! Prof. Frener is an Assistant Professor at Williams and Mary College. Below, he reflects on his time at the Graduate Center and the import of having a Black Race and Ethnic Studies PhD program.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I was born in Guatemala City in the 1980s in a moment of government persecution of students, democratic leaders, and critical voices. I did not experience political violence in my suburban neighborhood, nonetheless I grew up listening to my parents’ stories. This family memory was probably the seed from which it later grew the passion to better know the history of the diverse peoples of Guatemala and Latin America. Later, I studied sociology and anthropology in Guatemala, Mexico, and NYC.

How has your research contributed to Black Race and Ethnic Studies (BRES)?
I have published three books in Spanish and peer-reviewed articles in journals in the U.S. and Latin America. My interdisciplinary research brings together three strands of native studies, interethnic relations, and political economy in the Americas: (1) a longue-durée understanding of indigenous experiences of state and plantation formation in Central America and Mexico; (2) Maya communal politics and relations with nonindigenous sectors during the Guatemalan war in 1954–1996; and (3) contemporary indigenous experiences under increasing commodification (electricity, land) and diasporic reconfigurations in the twenty-first century.

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Can you share any memories working with the professors at the Graduate Center?
I believe in the importance of knowing and reflecting on intellectual traditions. In this vein, I admire the strong critical tradition of CUNY’s anthropology professors such as Eric Wolf and June Nash. Both made important contributions to understanding Mesoamerica, communal solidarities, and indigenous struggles for land and autonomy. As a graduate student, I enjoyed listening to David Harvey’s reading of Marx’s concept of social metabolism and Susan Buck-Morss’ lifelong commitment to Walter Benjamin’s and the Frankfurt School’s Critical Theory.

What’s one experience that shaped your academic journey?
One of the most intellectually rewarding experiences at CUNY was working with Marc Edelman as my advisor, an utmost expert on Central America and Critical Agrarian Studies. The title of my dissertation is “The Anti-Plantation Uprising: Indigenous Kinship, Territories, and Communal Politics in Guatemala, 1966-1982.” In this work, I rethink Maya indigenous politics through visual anthropology, ethnography of memory, and communal struggles during Guatemala’s Cold War. Currently, I am an assistant professor at the College of William and Mary’s Department of Anthropology and Native Studies Minor. I teach courses like “Indigenous Politics and Plantations in Latin America,” “Exploring Kinship,” and “Visual Anthropology in the Americas.”

As states across America begin to ban DEI programs in their colleges and universities, how important do you feel having a BRES PhD program is in our society?
In 2023, I was part of CUNY’s Black, Race and Ethnic Studies (BRES) fellows. There, I met colleagues working on rethinking critical theory and the challenges humanity faces in the current world crisis. In these moments, it is important to become a critical voice of contemporary injustice and state violence all over the world. The BRES doctoral program could foster and teach past and current critical traditions at CUNY and become a voice that shows the interrelation between capitalism, racial formation, and the possibility of rethinking – nowadays and under new historical circumstances – revolutionary utopia.