Twenty-five scholars from the Caribbean, South America and Africa will examine the status of black studies programs abroad at a conference presented by the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell University, Sept. 19 and 20.

The conference, "Africana Studies in Africa and the Diaspora," will be a reunion of sorts for these scholars who, since 1991, have each served a term as a visiting scholar at the Africana Studies and Research Center. Through a grant from the Ford Foundation, scholars from abroad were able to spent up to two weeks on the Cornell campus, studying at the center.

"Black studies programs in higher education began to develop in the United States in the 1960s," said Robert L. Harris Jr., professor and project director. (Cornell established the Africana Studies and Research Center in 1969.) "But this field of study has only recently captured attention in Africa and the Caribbean."

Harris, who serves as conference coordinator, said the civil rights and black consciousness movements of the 1960s helped spark an interest in black studies in the United States, while in the Caribbean and Africa there has not been a watershed event or movement to develop such programs as quickly.

"The focus of programs in various countries is also quite different," he noted. "In the United States, black studies programs are devoted largely to culture, history and politics; similar programs abroad have had difficulty establishing themselves because of their country's emphasis on economic development."

Harris said the Cornell conference is the first to address similarities and differences among black studies programs with scholars from around the world.

The conference opens Friday, Sept. 19, at 9 a.m. with a keynote address titled, "Africana Studies in the Age of Globalization" by Ali A. Mazrui, director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at the State University of New York at Binghamton and an A.D. White Professor-at-Large Emeritus.

Other topics to be addressed that day include "Africana Studies in Nigeria" and "From Death on the Slave Boats to Death on the Plantations: An African Tragedy." Presenters include scholars from Howard University and universities in South Africa, Nigeria and the Benin Republic.

Saturday's session begins at 9:30 a.m. and features presentations on the "African Diaspora and Jamaican Society," "African Religion and Economic Development in Kenya," "African Tradition Versus Modernity," "The Uses of Images and the Representation of Black People in Infant Imagination," "University Theatre and the Pressures of Freedom in Africa," "The Study of the African in Dispersion" and "Leaving Myth Behind: 'Racial Democracy' from an Afrocentric Perspective."

Presenters include scholars from universities in Barbados, Brazil, Cuba, Ghana, Jamaica, Kenya, Senegal, South Africa and Trinidad.

The conference concludes with a presentation titled "From the Inside to the Outside: New Perspectives in Africana Studies" by Sheila S. Walker, director of the Center for African and African-American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.

All papers presented will be published.

All conference sessions, which are free and open to the public, will take place at the Triphammer Lodge and Conference Center on Triphammer Road in Ithaca. Tickets are required to attend the luncheon and dinner. For information, contact Pat Dean at (607) 255-9919.