{"id":16483,"date":"2013-05-02T11:15:13","date_gmt":"2013-05-02T18:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/csws.uoregon.edu\/?p=16483"},"modified":"2021-01-13T09:49:01","modified_gmt":"2021-01-13T17:49:01","slug":"racial-representations-symposium-highlights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/csws-archive.uoregon.edu\/racial-representations-symposium-highlights\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cRacial Representations\u201d \u2014 Symposium Highlights"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Racial<\/a>

Racial Representations panelists \/ photo by Chelsea Bullock.<\/p><\/div>\n

Students, faculty and community members enjoyed a full day of literary readings and commentary on race at the University of Oregon on April 26, 2013, when a group of innovative scholars who specialize in African American literature gathered to share and discuss their research. \u201cRacial Representations: African American Literature since 1975,\u201d was organized by Courtney Thorsson, UO assistant professor of English.<\/p>\n

The morning panel, moderated by Professor Mark Whalan (UO Department of English), focused on African American poetry. Anthony Reed, assistant professor of English and African American studies at Yale University, examined the science of mourning in contemporary African American poetry. His talk addressed the importance of community building and love as sites for intellectual work. Matt Sandler, who teaches literature in the UO Clark Honors College, addressed the reception of and use of metaphor in Will Alexander\u2019s experimental poetry. In the final morning talk, Evie Shockley, associate professor of English at Rutgers University, used verse plays by Rita Dove and George Elliott Clarke to deconstruct the contemporary notion that we live in a \u201cpostrace\u201d and \u201ccolorblind\u201d society.<\/p>\n

During the afternoon panel, Howard Rambsy, associate professor of literature at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, highlighted a golden age of inspiration for black men writers between 1977 and 1997. He examined the works of Kevin Young, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Colson Whitehead, and Aaron McGruder to argue for the role of \u201ceclectic creative domains,\u201d from horror movies and Star Wars<\/em> to father-son relationship and hip hop in shaping the work of these writers. Erica Edwards, associate professor of English at the University of California, Riverside, analyzed Condoleezza Rice\u2019s Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family<\/em> and Nikky Finney\u2019s poem \u201cConcerto no. 7: condoleezza {working out} at the watergate<\/em>\u201d as a lens for discussing the \u201cracial commonsense of counterterror in African American literature after 9\/11.\u201d<\/p>\n

The day concluded with two author readings. Evie Shockley returned to the podium to share poems from her award-winning volume the new black<\/em> (2011) as well as several new pieces. In speech and song, Shockley\u2019s reading displayed the lyricism and musicality of her poetry. Her poems engaged the day\u2019s conversations asking how race looks depending on where you \u201center the stream of history.\u201d David Bradley, associate professor of creative writing at the University of Oregon, shared a self-proclaimed \u201cdiatribe\u201d against the NAACP\u2019s burial of the n-word in a provocative and powerful piece of creative nonfiction. He also read selections from a new work that highlighted the extraordinary and complex jazz of Miles Davis.<\/p>\n

Howard Rambsy\u2019s blog: http:\/\/www.siueblackstudies.com\/2013\/02\/a-golden-age-of-inspiration-for-black.html<\/p>\n

Video from \u201cRacial Representations\u201d available at: http:\/\/media.uoregon.edu\/channel\/?s=racial+representations&x=21&y=16<\/a><\/p>\n

UO Today conversation with poet and scholar Evie Shockley and Paul Peppis available at: http:\/\/media.uoregon.edu\/channel\/2013\/05\/15\/uo-today-545-evie-shockley\/<\/a><\/p>\nngg_shortcode_0_placeholder\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Students, faculty and community members enjoyed a full day of literary readings and commentary on race at the University of Oregon on April 26, 2013, when a group of innovative scholars who specialize in African American literature gathered to share…<\/p>\n

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