Mission
By bringing the campus community together to critically discuss the issues of race and racism and the impact these issues have upon the educational system and broader society, the lecture series seeks to foster cross-racial interaction, acceptance, and understanding throughout the community. The series engages and assists the 51风流 community in understanding the importance of racial and ethnic diversity in educational curriculum, pedagogy, programs, and policies.
Spring 2024
Hanif Abdurraqib
Poet, essayist, and winner of a MacArthur 鈥済enius鈥 grant, Mr. Abdurraqib is the author of five previous books, including They Can鈥檛 Kill Us Until They Kill Us and A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and which won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. Abdurraqib was a featured author in 2024's Living Writer's series.
Spring 2023
Dr. Damien Paul Monta帽o (Yoeme/Purepecha/Papago) from University of Michigan
Title: A Pearl in the Desert: Jewelry Studies, Foodscapes, & Futurities through Two Spirit/Queer Indigenous Lens
Spring 2022
Dr. Carla Shalaby from University of Michigan
Title: Teaching Love and Learning Freedom: Practicing Community in the Classroom
Spring 2021
Dr. Savannah Shange from UC Santa Cruz
In the midst of school closures in Black and Latinx neighborhoods and the aggressive rise of standardized tests as a coercive tool, San Francisco's progressive Robeson Justice Academy seems like an aberration in the state education system. However, anti-Black logics and practices are still entrenched in the school's everyday operations. Drawing from ethnographic data, this talk will focus on the ways in which sincerely anti-racist curricular content is challenged by Black students who critique the scope of its impact, revealing the antagonism between anti-racism and abolition.
Spring 2020
Dr. Arshad I. Ali from George Washington University
Dr. Ali drew upon a decade of research with Muslim communities in the US and Europe to explore how historic constructions of Muslim identities continue to be relevant in contemporary US. He discussed a history of racial otherness in the Americas through Spanish colonialism. Dr. Ali examines the intersections of anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, and Muslim otherness in the Western world and the US. Exploring the intersections of racial construction, settler colonialism, and epistemic violence, he discussed how anti-Muslim racism has been deployed in an increasingly carceral US. Dr. Ali will examine current effects of police surveillance, political violence, and cultural targeting on the lives of young Muslims in the US. Is full citizenship possible for US Muslim communities?
Co-Sponsors: Core 152, Core C&I, History, Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, Office of the Chaplains, Office of Equity & Diversity, Peace and Conflict Studies, Religion, Sio Chair, and Sociology and Anthropology.