Speaker Series & Faculty Colloquia

Speaking Engagements

• Lecture: Annual Black Experiences Lecture

  

  2024-25: Thomas F. DeFrantz (Northwestern University), "Dancing the African Diaspora: Shared Memories and Memorializations in Motion"

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  Recent Speakers

  • 2023-24: Erica Armstrong Dunbar (Charles and Mary Beard Distinguished Professor of History, Rutgers University), "Joy and Pain: Representations of Black Life from Slavery through the Gilded Age."
  • 2022-23: Barbara Ransby (African American studies, gender & women's studies, and history, University of Illinois – Chicago), " A Black Feminist Balm for Troubled Times: Revisiting the Insurgent Intellectual Praxis of bell hooks."
  • 2021-22: Ruha Benjamin (African American studies, Princeton University), "Race to the Future? Slowing Down to Reimagine Race, Technology, and Everyday Life in the 21st Century."
  • 2020-21: Amira Rose Davis (Penn State University), "Black Women and the (in)visibility of Athletic Activism: Past, Present and Future."
  • 2019: Michael Gomez (New York University), "Africa Through the Americas: Dialogics and Formation"
  • 2018: Kyle T. Mays (UCLA), "We Still Here": Indigenous Hip Hop, Resisting (Settler) Colonialism, and the Politics of Possibility"
  • 2017: Karyn Lacy (University of Michigan), "Growing Up Around Blacks: Strategic Assimilation in Middle-class Suburbia"
  • 2016: Angela Harris (UC Davis), "Food, Farming, and Freedom: The New Black Agrarians"
  • 2015: Melissa Harris Perry
  • 2014: Diane Nash, "The Movements of the '60s: A legacy for Today"
  • 2013: Sami Schalk, "Blackness and Disability: From Slavery to a Not-so-distant Future"
  • 2012: Barbara Smith, "Black Feminist Activism: My Next Chapter"
  • 2011: Ben Vinson III (Johns Hopkins University), "Black Synergies: Surveying Afromexican History with African American Linkages"
  • 2010: Michelle M. Wright (Northwestern University), "Black, But Not Like You: Race and Representation in the Age of Obama"

   

• Speaker Series: Annual Speaker Series

  The Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Gender hosts a speaker series each year centered around a different theme.

  The Legacy of bell hooks (2022-23)

  • Barbara Ransby (University of Chicago), "A Black Feminist Balm for Troubled Times: Revisiting the Insurgent Intellectual Praxis of bell hooks."
  • Women of Color Reading Group: Killing Rage, bell hooks, with Barbara Ransby, facilitated by Jaye Austin-Williams (critical Black studies).
  • bell hooks reading group facilitated by Vanessa Massaro (geography) and Kendy Alvarez '06 (mayor of Lewisburg).

  Performing against Power, Privilege and Injustice (2019-20)

  • Kali N. Gross (history, Rutgers University), “Deploying Violence, Performing Fragility: Hannah Mary Tabbs”
  • Shirley Jennifer Lim (history, SUNY Stony Brook), “Anna May Wong: Performing the Modern”
  • Kelly Askew, (anthropology and Afroamerican & African studies, University of Michigan), “Poetry, Rap and Radicalism in Tanzania: An Intersectional Perspective” (postponed)

  Indigeneity: Making the Visible Seen (2018-19)

  • Kyle T. Mays (history, UCLA), “‘We Still Here’: Indigenous Hip Hop, Resisting (Settler) Colonialism, and the Politics of Possibility”
  • Film: Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World
  • Michelle Harris (Africana studies, University of Albany) “It’s Real! Racism, Discrimination and Race Matters in Obamerica”
  • Janet Chvez-Santiago (language activist) “Digital Humanities and Weaving the World: Indigenous Language — Zapotec”
  • Janeen Frei Njootli (Vuntut Gwich’in artist)
  • Angela Riley (law, UCLA) “Between Indigenous Law and Federal Law”

  Class in America (2017-18)

  • Karyn Lacy (sociology, University of Michigan) “Growing up Around Blacks: Strategic Assimilation in Middle-Class Suburbia”
  • Elizabeth Armstrong (sociology & organizational studies, University of Michigan) “Paying for the Party”
  • Dorothy Allison (feminist writer) “A Racecar Named Desire: the Intersection of Class, Race, Sexuality and Gender”

  Latinos in the United States (2016-17)

  • Wilton Martinez (Center for the Visual Anthropology of Peru) “Transnational Fiesta: Twenty Years Later, film & discussion”
  • Robyn Henderson-Espinoza, Religion (Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley) “New Folds of Borderlands: Tracing the Figure of the Nomad thru Difference & Becoming”
  • Tony Affigne (political science, Providence College) “From the Rio Grande to the Susquehanna: Latino Emergence and the Enrichment of American Politics”
  • Ricardo Dominguez (visual arts, University of California, San Diego) “The Aesthetics of Electronic Disturbance Theater as Digital Zapatismo: From Radical Transparency to Radical Translucency”

  Honoring the Legacy of James Baldwin/Price of the Ticket: African American Artists – Activism, Aesthetics and the Atelier (2015-16)

  • Film: “The Price of the Ticket” an award winning film on James Baldwin to open the series
  • Michael Cobb (English, University of Toronto) “Love, James Baldwin Style, or How Not to Let Social Media Ruin Your Intimacies”
  • Clarence Hardy (religion, Yale Divinity School) “Far From God”: A Bastard People, Baldwin, Black Religion, and America”
  • Round Table: Humanity, Testimony, Language
  • Glen Retief (creative writing, Susquehanna University)
  • Carol Wayne White (religion, Bucknell University)
  • James Haile (philosophy, Bucknell University)

  CSREG-BIPP Series on The Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act: Fifty Years After (2014-15)

  • Film and Discussion: Facilitated by professors Jennifer Thomson (history) and Dave Ragland (education): “Nashville: We Were Warriors”
  • Diane Nash (civil rights activist) “The Movements of the ‘60s: A Legacy for Today”
  • Workshop on Nonviolent Activism with Diane Nash
  • Pizza & Policy Forum: “Origins and Aftermath of the 1964 Civil Rights Act” with Michael James (political science), Scott Meinke (political science) and Leslie Patrick (history)
  • Film: on the Voting Rights Act: “Freedom Summer”

   

• Speaker Series: Faculty Colloquia

  The Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Gender faculty colloquia series enables Bucknell faculty to present their ongoing research and works-in-progress to fellow faculty members and students. Each year, three to five faculty members present their research on a wide range of topics. We often invite faculty who have received CSREG summer research grants to present the results of their projects in these colloquia.

  Fall 2024-25

  • Cassie Osei (History)
    Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, 4:30 p.m., Traditional Reading Room (BERT 213)
    "Weaponizing the Master's Tools? Sex Scams, Dubious Consent, and Newspaper Coverage of Black Domestic Workers in Post-War Brazil"
  • Benjamin Barson (Music)
    Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024, 4:30 p.m., Traditional Reading Room (BERT 213)
    "Cultures of Asian Indenture: Musical Hybridity and Resistance in the Plantation Americas"

  Past Presenters

  • 2023-24
    • Elena Perez-Zetune (Women’s and Gender Studies/Latin American Studies)
      Navigating Home: Latinx Placemaking in Rural Pennsylvania
    • Ritwika Biswas (Geography)
      Tentative Title: "Can the Violent Urban be Repaired? Exploring Kolkata's Infrastructural Violence and Path Forward”
    • Courtney Burns (Political Science)
      "Women Leaders and Peacekeeping Contributions: Bypassing the Political Double Bind?
    • Rachel Trusty (Women's and Gender Studies)
      "Chesser and Holly: A Queer, Interracial Marriage in the Turn-of-the-Century Frontier"
  • 2022-23
    • Christina Xydias (political science)
      "Constructing Political Representation: A Mess Worth Making"
    • Adam Burgos (philosophy)
      "Colonialism, Neo-Colonialism, Internal Colonialism: The Case of Puerto Ricans"
    • Soundarya Chidambaram (political science)
      "Gender and Civic Participation in India: Why Women Participate in Hindu Nationalism"
    • Chase Gregory (English)
      "Crossing Both Ways: Sarah Jones, The Moth Radio Hour, and the Disruptive Potential of Voices"
  • 2021-22
    • Eddy Lopez (art & art history)
    • Nick Brady (Africana studies)
      "Black Ether: Rioting, Negativity, and the Political"
    • Abe Feuerstein (education)
      "School Curriculum in the News: Black Lives Matter and the Continuing Struggle for Culturally Responsive Education"
    • John Enyeart (history)
      “US Antifascism and Rose Pesotta’s Proletarian Feminism during the 1930s and 1940s”
  • 2019-20
    • Anjalee Hutchinson (theatre & dance)
      “Inspiration vs. Appropriation: Explorations in Cultural Competency and Performance”
    • Stephanie Larson (classics)
      "Colonizing Women's Bodies and New Territories in Ancient Greek Mythology"
  • 2018-19
    • Jennifer Kosmin (history)
      "Enlightened Anatomies: Obstetrical Waxes and Popular Anatomy in Eighteenth-Century Italy"
    • Alicia Hayashi-Lazzarini (geography)
      "East Asian Investment, Luxury Space, and New Racial Contours in Lusophone Africa"
    • Jenna Christian (women's & gender studies)
      "Fighting for Citizenship: White Supremacy and the Everyday Politics of U.S. Military Recruiting"
    • Beeta Baghoolizadeh (history and Africana studies)
      "Monsters, Genies, and Slaves: The Blurring of Myth and Memory in Modern Iran"
  • 2017-18
    • Katherine Faull, (German and humanities)
      "Race, Religion, and Iron: A Case of Knowledge Transfer between West Africa and the Colonial Mid-Atlantic States?"
    • Vanessa Massaro, (geography)
      "Externalizing the “Inmate”: Tracing the Intimate Economies of the New Geographies of Correctional Supervision"
    • Meenakshi Ponnuswami, (English)
      "British Asian Women in Performance: Stage, Screen, and Stand-Up"
    • Coralynn Davis (women's & gender studies and anthropology)
      “Revisioning Our Stories: Drawing on Tradition for Changing Women's Lives in Mithila”
    • Abe Feuerstein (education) and Sue Ellen Henry (education)
      “The Hidden Language of Social Class: How Teachers Read Students' Bodies”
  • 2016-17
    • Mai-Linh Hong (English)
      “Resettling America: Refugee Law and Refugee Narratives”
    • Scott St. Pierre (women’s & gender studies)
      “Cuck: Meninists, Aardvarks, and Other Peculiarities in 21st Century Anti-Feminist Discourse”
    • Jason Alley (sociology)
      "When You’re 64: Experimental Ethnography and San Francisco’s Young-Old"
    • Anthony Stewart (English)
      "A Visitor Thinks About 'Home.'"
  • 2015-16
    • Nick Jones (Spanish)
      "Out of the Mouths of Slaves: Africanized Iberian Languages in Imperial Iberia."
    • Brantley Gasaway (religious studies)
      "Progressive Evangelicals and the Ethics of Same-Sex Marriage"
    • Rhonda Sharpe (economics)
      "I'm Every Woman: Income Distribution by Race and Ethnicity"
    • James Haile (philosophy)
      "Ta-Nehisi Coates: quantum matter and the phenomenology of the body"
    • Carolyn Holmes (political science)
      "White Men's Guilt and Black Women's Pain: Gender, Race, and Embodiment in South Africa's Reconciliation Process"
    • Ketaki Pant (ASIANetwork-LUCE Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow, CSREG and Religious Studies Department)
      "Homes of Capital: Merchants across Indian Ocean Gujarat"