Autumn 2017 “From Combahee to #BlackLivesMatter: Exploring a History of Black Politics and Culture”
Curated by Cathy J. Cohen (Interim Director, CSRPC; David and Mary Winton Green Professor of Political Science)
Recent works on contemporary Black political and cultural formations represent the Movement for Black Lives as distinctively-and, in some accounts, prototypically-attentive to interlocking systems of oppression. However, enduring struggles with secondary and tertiary marginalization within the movement reveal contradictions that necessitate further analysis. Foregrounding the historical (dis)continuities among Black freedom struggles, this workshop aims to re-interpret articulations of race, gender, and sexuality within #BlackLivesMatter by examining the movement's antecedents-namely, the works of Black feminist, lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and trans activists, intellectuals and artists emerging in the late 20th century. Accordingly, the workshop solicits papers that explore the co-constitution of race, gender, and sexuality within contemporary Black political and cultural projects. We will, of course, consider any paper involving conceptions of race and ethnicity, and we are especially interested in works that involve this theme.
Thursday, September 28, 2017 / 7pm / Harper Theater, 5238 S Harper Ave*
"THE COMBAHEE RIVER COLLECTIVE MIXTAPE: BLACK FEMINIST SONIC DISSENT THEN & NOW"
Jacqueline Stewart (Professor of Cinema and Media Studies, University of Chicago), Daphne Brooks (Professor of African American Studies and Theater Studies, Yale University) & Kara Keeling (Associate Professor of Critical Studies and American Studies, University of Southern California)
Thursday, October 5, 2017
"EVIDENCE OF BEING: THE BLACK GAY CULTURAL RENAISSANCE AND THE POLITICS OF VIOLENCE"
Darius Bost (Assistant Professor of Sexuality Studies; Director of the Center for Research and Education on Gender and Sexuality, San Francisco State University)
Thursday, October 19, 2017
"INVISIBLE NO MORE: POLICE VIOLENCE AGAINST BLACK WOMEN AND WOMEN OF COLOR"
Andrea J. Ritchie (Researcher-in-Residence on Race, Gender, Sexuality and Criminalization at the Social Justice Institute of the Barnard Center for Research on Women) in conversation with Cathy J. Cohen
Thursday, November 2, 2017
"MAKING ALL BLACK LIVES MATTER"
Barbara Ransby (Professor of History, African-American Studies, and Gender and Women’s Studies; Interim Vice Provost for Planning and Programs, University of Illinois at Chicago)
Thursday, November 16, 2017
"PAINTING REDEMPTIVE BLACK LABOR: ART, ETHIOPIANISM, THE GREAT MIGRATION, AND THE POLITICAL-THEOLOGICAL PROBLEM OF ANALOGY"
Kai Parker (PhD Candidate in History, University of Chicago)
Thursday, November 30, 2017
TITLE TBA
Roderick Ferguson (Professor of African American and Gender & Women's Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago)
Thursday, December 7, 2017
"ON BLACK PUBLICS AND COUNTERPUBLICS: (RE) SITUATING THE QUEER AND FEMINIST WORK AT THE MARGINS OF THE BLACK PUBLIC SPHERE"
Jenn M. Jackson (PhD Candidate in Political Science, University of Chicago)
The Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture (CSRPC) is pleased to host the Reproduction of Race and Racial Ideologies Workshop at 5733 South University Avenue. Most meetings will be held on alternate Thursdays, 5:00 pm - 6:30 pm, in the first floor Seminar Room, unless otherwise noted.* To download available papers, click on their title. All papers are in PDF format -- you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open PDF files.