2009-10 EVENTS & CONFERENCES

All events are held at Williams College and are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted.

APRIL 2010

4/6

Sterling Brown Lecture by Kimberly Springer
"Hate the Game, Not the Playa"
4:00 p.m.
NEW LOCATION: Griffin Hall Rm 7

The Sterling Brown ’22 Lecture Series presents the second of two events featuring Visiting Professor of Africana Studies Kimberly Springer: a lecture titled "Hate the Game, Not the Playa: Black Neoliberal Subjectivity and the Media."

Examining contemporary U.S. current affairs programming, this public lecture asks, What modes of conduct does neoliberalism demand of the racially integrated, U.S. subject? How is African-American everyday life being reshaped in contemporary global capitalism? And, lastly, Is it possible to discuss accountability without falling into the trap of personal responsibility that theorists maintain is at the heart of the neoliberal project?

MARCH 2010

3/9

Brown Bag lunch talk by Kimberly Springer
Noon-1:30 p.m.
NAB 2nd Floor Public Space by NAB Rm 240

The Sterling Brown ’22 Lecture Series presents the first of two events featuring Visiting Professor of Africana Studies Kimberly Springer: a Brown Bag lunch talk titled "De/romanticizing Black Panther History - The Remembering Olive Morris Collective."

Do you remember Olive Morris? That is the organizing principle around the work of the Remembering Olive Collective, based in Brixton, a predominately Afro-Caribbean community in London. This brown bag will explore questions of generation, telling stories, and hagiographies around black liberation movement figures.

Please join us! (Bring your lunch)

Coming April 6 - Part 2 of the Sterling Brown ’22 Visiting Professor of Africana Studies Lecture Series: "Hate the Game, Not the Playa - How Contemporary U.S. Current Affairs Programming Shapes Black Neoliberal Subjectivity."

FEBRUARY 2010

2/23

Poetry reading by Tyehimba Jess
4:00 p.m.
Griffin Hall Rm 3

Born in Detroit, Tyehimba Jess is that rare poet who bridges slam and academic poetry. His first collection, leadbelly (2005), an exploration of the blues musician Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter’s life, was chosen for the National Poetry Series by Brigit Pegeen Kelly, and was voted one of the top three poetry books of the year by Black Issues Book Review. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly noted that "the collection’s strength lies in its contradictory forms; from biography to lyric to hard-driving prose poem, boast to song, all are soaked in the rhythm and dialect of Southern blues and the demands of honoring one’s talent."

A two-time member of the Chicago Green Mill Slam team, Jess was also Chicago’s Poetry Ambassador to Accra, Ghana. His work has been featured in numerous anthologies, including Soulfires: Young Black Men in Love and Violence (1996), Slam: The Competitive Art of Performance Poetry (2000), and Dark Matter 2: Reading the Bones (2004). He is the author of African American Pride: Celebrating Our Achievements, Contributions, and Enduring Legacy (2003).

His honors include a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Chicago Sun-Times Poetry Award, and a Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Poetry Award. A former artist-in-residence with Cave Canem, he has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Illinois Arts Council, and the Fine Arts Work Center at Provincetown, as well as a Lannan Writing Residency. Jess received his BA from the University of Chicago and his MFA from New York University. He has taught at the Juilliard School and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and currently teaches at the College of Staten Island in New York City. Click here to link to an audio archive of his work.

2/9

Lecture by Williams alumna Juliet Hooker '94
"Hybrid Traditions: African-American and Latin American Political Thinkers on Race"
7:30 p.m.
Griffin Hall Rm 3

Juliet Hooker '94, Associate Professor of Government at the University of Texas, examines the political philosophy of race in the Americas. Sponsored by Political Science, Africana Studies, and Claiming Williams. For more information, contact Prof Jim Mahon (413) 597-2236 or Prof Neil Roberts (413) 597-4772.

OCTOBER 2009

10/30
Public performance by Roger Bonair-Agard, Trinidadian poet
"Masquerade: Calypso and Home"
8:00 p.m.
Mainstage, '62 Center for Theatre and Dance

Early 1980s Trinidad: Midnight Robber meets Michael Jackson, soca music meets first dances and fist fights. Carnival, football, family, and a bottle of rum. Masquerade: Calypso and Home is a solo performance that traces with stunning, vibrant immediacy a journey both personal and political. Bonair-Agard weaves living, breathing tapestries out of notions of home and voluntary exile, tenderly unmasking family secrets, his Caribbean adolescence, and life as an immigrant in America. Co-sponsored by the Multicultural Center and the Africana Studies Program.

10/22
Africana Studies Open House and Pizza Party
4:00-6:00 p.m.
North Academic Building Rm 241

All are warmly invited to an Open House with pizza and soft drinks hosted by the Africana Studies Program--not just for concentrators and potential concentrators but also for anyone interested in learning more about Africana Studies at Williams.

SEPTEMBER 2009

9/24
Lecture by Carlos Moore
7:00 p.m.
Paresky Center, L02 (lower level)

An ethnologist and political scientist with two doctorates from the prestigious University of Paris-7, France, Dr. Carlos Moore is an expert on the impact of race and ethnicity on domestic politics and inter-state affairs, and a leader in the ongoing global discussion on the topic of race, particularly race in Latin America. His 2008 book Pichón: Race and Revolution in Castro’s Cuba, A Memoir recounts his life of devastating poverty, racism, and his fight for justice; the book traces his imprisonment and eventual exile for speaking out against Fidel Castro and his return to Cuba 30 years later. His other books include A África que Incomoda; Racismo e Sociedade; Castro, the Blacks, and Africa; Fela: This Bitch of a Life; and Cette Putain de Vie. Moore is currently at work on Race: The Last Frontier of Hatred, which summarizes his three decades of research, conducted around the world, on the impact of race on society.

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