Colorado College Assistant Professor of Race, Ethnicity, and Migration Studies Michael E. Sawyer is sponsoring a two-day virtual symposium Friday-Saturday, Oct. 23-24, titled "Racial Justice in the Age of the Plague."
"Difficult times reveal the foundational instability of political systems," says Sawyer, who also teaches in CC's English Department and is director of the college's Africana Intellectual Project.
"The global pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus Covid-19 has sent seismic tremors through the world system and brought its toxic relationship to race to the forefront of our collective consciousness - while also manifestly bringing into crisis the idea that 'we' (abstract, unmarked, unremarked) share or can share such a collective consciousness: that 'we' share the experience of illness, of daily violence, of representation or representability," he says.
The two-day symposium features more than 20 scholars and experts who will discuss political concepts as a forum for conversation and constructive debate rather than the construction of an encyclopedic ideal. See complete information.
The webinar is free and open to the public. Register in advance at: https://coloradocollege.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_C9yZrTnuQqu65G3eYGm8Xg
Schedule: (Note: all times are Eastern Time)
Friday, Oct. 23
12 p.m. - 12:15 p.m. Opening remarks
12:30 p.m. - 1:45 p.m. Panel 1
Chair: Jay Bernstein (Philosophy, New School for Social Research)
Kathryn Sophia Belle (Philosophy, Pennsylvania State University) - Care
Michael C. Dawson (Political Science, University of Chicago) - Racial Capitalism
2 p.m. - 3:15 p.m. Panel 2
Chair: Ann Stoler (Anthropology and History, New School for Social Research)
Barrymore Anthony Bogues (Africana Studies, Brown University) - Abolition
Andrés F. Henao Castro (Political Science, University of Massachusetts, Boston) - Necropolitics
3:30 p.m. - 4:45 p.m. Panel 3
Chair: Emily Apter (French and Comparative Literature, New York University)
Joy James (Humanities, Williams College) - Captive Maternal
Tommy Curry (School of Philosophy and Language Studies, University of Edinburgh) - Black Men
5 p.m. - 5:15 p.m. Closing remarks
Saturday, Oct. 24
12 p.m. - 12:15 p.m. Opening remarks
12:30 p.m. - 1:45 p.m. Panel 4
Chair: Achille Mbembe (Philosophy, University of Witswaterand/Duke University)
R.A. Judy (Critical and Cultural Studies, University of Pittsburgh) - Riot
Selamawit Terrefe (English, Tulane University) - Psycho-politicsz
2 p.m. - 3:15 p.m. Panel 5
Chair: Jacques Lezra (Hispanic Studies, University of California, Riverside)
Zakiyyah Iman Jackson (English, University of Southern California) - Body
Michael E. Sawyer (Race, Ethnicity and Migration Studies, and English, Colorado College) - Gravity
3:30 p.m. - 4:45 p.m. Panel 6
Chair: Akeel Bilgrami (Philosophy, Columbia University)
Barnor Hesse (African-American Studies, Northwestern University) - Racism
Janine Jones (Philosophy, University of North Carolina, Greensboro) - Dreadlocked Logics of Impossibility
5 p.m. - 6 p.m. Closing discussion