Theorizing Blackness @ CUNY
"Untitled" (1984) by Jean-Michel Basquiat
The “Theorizing Blackness” Conference
April 4th 2008
CUNY Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Generally these CUNY conferences are flava. I presented at the Graduate Center's Black Masculinities Conference in 2005 on a panel with fellow performance studies-buff Shane Vogel and got lots of great feedback. I'm sure this conference will be an equally pleasurable experience. Duke University's black pop culture afficioncado Mark Anthony Neal You will deliver the keynote address. should come, really.
Theorizing Blackness Conference Schedule**
Friday, April 4th, 2008
CUNY Graduate Center
New York, NY 10016
8:00am - 9:00am: Registration / Introduction / Breakfast
9:00am - 10:30am: Session 1
Panel 1 - Room C-197
Moderator:
La Marr Jurelle Bruce (Yale University): “Possessing the Body Beautiful: Black Drag Queens, White Heteronormativity, and ‘Happily Ever After’ in American Cinema”
Angelique Harris (California State University, Fullerton): “Sexuality and Homosexuality in the Black Church”
Panel 2 - Room C-198
“Cope, Conform or Resist?: How Blacks “Use” their Blackness at Predominantly White University” (University of Delaware)
Moderator: Yasser Payne
Brittany Pearl Battle
Mamawa Lemon Fofana
LaMar Rashad Gibson
Thea James Ogunusi
Carl Suddler
Panel 3 - Room C-201
Moderator:
Donny Levit (CUNY Graduate Center): “The Spiritual Present: The Inextricable Relationship Between Jazz and the Black Arts Movement”
Algernon Austin (The Thora Institute): “Mapping the Afrocentric Era, 1988-1998”
Panel 4 - Room C-202
“The Politics of the Black Atlantic Body and the Body of Black Atlantic Politics: Nation, Identity, and Resistance”
Moderator:
Natalie Belisle (U. Wisconsin, Madison): “In the Spirit of the Ancestors: Spiritual Discourse and the Black Revolutionary Struggle in O Ano Em Que Zumbí Tomou O Rio”
Jessica Krug (U. Wisconsin, Madison): “Social Dismemberment, Social Remembering: Contested Kromanti Identities, Nationalism, and Obeah, 1675-Present”
Jamila Moore-Pewu (U. California, Davis): “Rebranding the Continent, Rethinking Modernity:“Africa’s Image Problem” in the 21st Century”
T.J. Desch-Obi (Baruch College, CUNY): “Embodying Honour: Liberating Enslaved Identities Through the Body”
Jarett M. Fields (U. Wisconsin, Madison): “Blackness, the Body, and the 1968 Olympics”
Panel 5 - Room C-203
Moderator:
Julian Ellison: “Melanesia: Pacific Blacks in the African American Consciousness”
Kelly Baker-Josephs (York College, CUNY): “Afrofruturism from a Caribbean Past: The Local Orientation of a Black World Vision”
10:45am - 11:45am: Keynote Lecture:
Professor Mark Anthony Neal (Duke University)
“Fragments of a Feedback Loop: Blackness in Conversation”
12:00pm - 1:15pm: Lunch
1:30pm - 3:00pm: Session 2
Panel 6 - Room C-197
Moderator:
Alan R. Takeall (CUNY Graduate Center): “Black Uplift in the New Racial Domain”
Jacqueline Jones (Francis Marion University): “Pondering the Strange Meaning of Being Black or How Black Can I Be At Work?”
Lori Sykes (John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY): “Strategic Assimilation or Creation of Symbolic Blackness?: Middle-Class Blacks in Suburban Contexts”
Panel 7 - Room C-198
“Theorizing the African Diaspora”: (U.C. Berkeley African Diaspora Studies Graduate Group)
Moderator:
Vielka Cecilia Hoy: “Race, Multiple Diasporas, and Points of Departure: Creating a Framework for Theorizing Afro-Latinos”
Petra Raquel Rivera: “‘Soca, Reggae, Reggaetón, Tropical Mix’: Afro-Latino Spaces and Notch’s Reggaetón”
Asia Leeds: “Redeeming Black Womanhood: Newspaper Portraits and Notions of Femininity in Marcus Garvey’s Negro World”
Robeson T. P. Frazier: “From Mao to Yao: Chinese–African American Exchanges in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century”
Panel 8 - Room C-201
Moderator:
Johanna Faith Cacho Almiron (University of Hawaii, Manoa): “Still Not For Sale: Basquiat’s Blackness & The Reeboppers”
Jordana Saggese (Santa Clara University): “Basquiat’s Blackness: Re-defining an African-American Aesthetic”
Panel 9 - Room C-202
Moderator:
Janette Yarwood (CUNY Graduate Center): “Deterritorialized Blackness: (Re)making Coloured Identity Among Youth in Post-Apartheid South Africa”
Sara Nichole Artes (American University): “We are, But We Aren't: Constructing African American Identity Through Cultural Heritage Performance on the US/Mexican Border”
Alexander Lamazares (Bronx Community College, CUNY): “Afro-Cuban Aesthetics: The Africa Decade, Secret Societies, and Racial Politics”
Panel 10 - Room C-203
Moderator:
Marissel Hernández-Romero (CUNY Graduate Center): “Contemporary Afro-Brazilian Female Literature: A Threat to an Imagined Nation?”
Katherine Baxter (University of Hong Kong): “New Black Fiction of the Far East”
Roopika Risam (Emory University): “African American Young Adult Literature: A Black Radical Tradition”
Ronald Tyson (Raritan Valley Community College): “The Changing Same”: Essentialized Blackness in Contemporary African American Popular Fiction”
Panel 11 - Room C-204
“Ontologies of James Baldwin”
Moderator : Jerry G. Watts (CUNY Graduate Center)
Sam Han (CUNY Graduate Center): “An Encounter of Mitsein: The Ontology of James Baldwin’s Ethics of Victimhood”
David Stein (Yale University): “(Re)naming/Revealing: James Baldwin's Theorizations of Racialized Formations Under the Terror of State Sanctioned Violence”
3:15pm - 4:45pm: Session 3
Panel 12 - Room C-197
Moderator:
Yamuna Sangarasivam (Nazareth College): “‘Terrorist’ as Fugitive Slave: Blackness in the Foundations of Citizenship and Democracy”
Robin Hayes (Santa Clara University): “African Liberation, Black Power and a Diasporic Underground”
Juliana Smith (University of California, San Diego): “Freedom Dreams: Political Exile, U.S. Social Movements, and Post-Revolutionary Cuba”
Panel 13 - Room C-198
Moderator:
Jessica Ruglis (CUNY Graduate Center): “The Graduation Rate Crisis: Adverse Consequences and the Construction of Blackness in the Context of Cultural Oppression”
Gail Perry-Ryder (CUNY Graduate Center): “Making Race Real: Exploring the Intersection of Race, Academic Performance and Educational Culture in Our Public Schools and Colleges”
Brian Purnell (Fordham University): “From “Negro” to “Black”: Black Power Politics in New York City’s Public Schools During the Mid-1960s – The Story of Jitu Weusi (Les Campbell) and the Origins of the Afro-American Teachers’ Association”
Panel 14 - Room C-201
Moderator:
La Marr Jurelle Bruce (Yale University): “Looking for Lauryn: Madness, Genius, and the Black Prophetess”
Alexis Pauline Gumbs (Duke University): “Salvaged Tongue: Transnational Translations of English Between Black Feminists”
GerShun Avilez (University of Pennsylvania): “‘Once You Go White’: Inter-racial Desire and Contemporary Black Female Identity in Film”
Stacie McCormick (CUNY Graduate Center): “From Jolly Joe's Lady Minstrels to Madea Simmons: Enduring Representations of Black Womanhood through Impersonation”
Panel 15 - Room C-202
“How Much and What Kind of Blackness is Enough?”: (University of Delaware Black American Studies Department)
Moderator: James M. Jones (University of Delaware)
James M. Jones and David Wilson: “Black Enough?: Dimensions of Blackness and Attitudes toward Black Leaders”
Carol Henderson: “Boxing' on Paper: Authenticity in the Preservation of a Black Self”
Antonia Randolph: “Retreating from Race: The Social Cost of Erasing Black Ethnicity”
Yasser Payne: “Street Life Black Men: A Culture of Honor, Respect and Resilience”
Maggie Ussery: “Not Just any Job: The Development of Work-related Identity in Young, Black Workers”
Panel 16 - Room C-203
Moderator:
Richard Perez (CUNY Graduate Center): “Archives, Knowledges, and Detours: Rereading the Black Atlantic with and against Ian Baucom’s Specters of the Atlantic: Finance Capital, Slavery, and the Philosophy of History”
DeWitt King (University of California, Santa Barbara): “Theorizing Black Geographies”
Percy Hintzen (University of California, Berkeley): “The Space of Caribbean Blackness & Pedagogies & Performatives of Modern”
Panel 17 - Room C-204
“Post(modern) Blackness”
Moderator:
Alessandra Raengo (Georgia State University): “Counterfeit Currency: Race at Face Value”
Jonathan Gray (John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY): “Black Cultural Artifacts and the Conditions of Democracy”
Danielle Jackson: “Beyond Race: Black People and the Multicultural Idea in Contemporary Magazine Culture”
5:00pm – 6:45pm: Evening Plenary:
Moderator: William E. Cross Jr. (CUNY Graduate Center)
Mahen Bonetti (African Film Festival, Inc.)
Jacqueline Nassy Brown (Hunter College, CUNY)
Johanna Fernandez (Baruch College, CUNY)
Donette Francis (Binghamton University, SUNY)
7:00pm – 9:00pm: Closing Reception/Party
