Initiative for the Study of Religion and Culture in Africa and the African Diaspora
The Initiative for the Study of Religion and Culture in Africa and the African Diaspora (ISRCAD) is the research arm of the Department of Africana Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Its purpose is to encourage and provide support for the interdisciplinary study of the histories, religions, languages, and cultures of peoples of Africa and the African Diaspora from antiquity to the present.
Through its slate of projected activities—which includes an annual colloquium, a lecture series, a research annual, a postdoctoral fellowship program, and a visiting scholars program—is hoped that ISRCAD will further enhance the intellectual climate at Notre Dame for advanced research on a range of pivotal issues related to Africa and the African Diaspora. It is also hoped that it will provide a supportive and vibrant intellectual community in which humanists and social scientists from a broad cross-section of disciplines can examine these issues.
ISRCAD's activities will also help to forward the threefold mission of the Department of Africana Studies: (1) to provide a disciplined and rigorous intellectual environment for the study of issues related to both Africa and the African Diaspora; (2) to promote educational and cultural events that increase public awareness about the histories, literatures, languages, and cultures of African and Afrodiasporan peoples; and (3) to provide resources that encourage and facilitate the rigorous interdisciplinary study of Africa and the African Diaspora within and beyond the classroom.