Mixed Race Studies

The Society for French Historical Studies 57th Annual Meeting

Sponsored by The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina
The Francis Marion Hotel
Charleston, South Carolina
2011-02-11 through 2011-02-12

Includes the following sessions:

1A “Representation and Commemoration in France and Its Colonies”…

Black and White: Figuring the Senegalese Signares [definition in French]
Thérèse De Raedt, Associate Professor of Languanges and Literature
University of Utah

4H “Children and Families in the French Empire”…

Who is French? Mixed-Race Children in the First Indochina War
Christina Firpo, Assistant Professor of History
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

For the program guide, click here.

The Social Ontology of Race in the “Post-Racial” Era

The University of Memphis Department of Philosophy
7th Annual Philosophy Graduate Student Association Conference
2011-02-11 through 2011-02-12

Keynote Speaker

Jennifer Lisa Vest, Assistant Professor of Philosophy
University of Central Florida

In the past several decades, mainstream philosophical discourse has examined the ontology of race from a number of philosophical vantage points. During this period, thinkers have called our philosophical attention to the widespread acknowledgment in the scientific community that the concept of race has no biological basis. However, African American scholars in a variety of disciplines have been debating the question of the reality of race since the late nineteenth century. Of particular import has been the question of the ontological currency of the concept of race apart from its dubious biological status.

In contemporary academic discourse, the social ontology of race is a vibrant and dynamic question with implications across various traditions and subfields within the discipline of philosophy in both the analytic and continental traditions and beyond. Interdisciplinary by nature, discussion surrounding this question has reverberations in companion disciplines such as ethnic studies, political theory, philosophy of law, history, feminist theory, queer theory, gender studies, sociology, anthropology, and psychology.

Just what does it mean to be racialized as non-white in American culture today? To what extent does such a classification still carry negative connotations? How has the growing population of “mixed race” people affected how race is understood in America? How, if at all, has the election of our first black/ “mixed race” president changed the social ontology of race in America? Does this landmark event signify the onset of a “post-racial” era? How do these questions intersect with other issues of social ontology? These are the kinds of questions we hope to address in our 7th annual Philosophy Graduate Student Association conference at the University of Memphis. We invite philosophy papers on any of these topics, or any related topic. Interdisciplinary approaches are welcomed.

Deadline for submission of papers is January 1, 2011 (extended). Papers should be sent as Word documents not to exceed 12 double-spaced pages. Papers should be suitable for blind review, including a cover letter with all relevant personal information (name, contact information, university affiliation).

For more information, click here.

Hypodescent: New Work by Gabriel Mejia

University of Wisconsin, Madison
George L. Mosse Humanities Building
7th Floor Gallery Room 7240
455 North Park Street
2010-12-11 through 2010-12-16

Gabriel Mejia

All events are free and open to the public.

Closing Reception: 2010-12-16, 19:00-21:00 CST (Local Time).

A meditation on identity and the social constructs of racial assignment. Featuring printmaking and video installations by 2nd year MFA graduate student, Gabriel Mejia.

For more information, click here.

Natasha Trethewey: 2010

Littoral: The Journal of Key West Literary Seminar
2010-03-17

Arlo Haskell

Natasha Trethewey is the author of three collections of poetry, including Native Guard, which won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize, Bellocq’s Ophelia, and Domestic Work, which won the inaugural Cave Canem Poetry Prize. A native of Mississippi, a member of the Dark Room Collective, and the Phillis Wheatley Distinguished Chair in Poetry at Emory University, Trethewey’s work often shifts from the personal to the historical, confronting subjects that include the legacies of racism in America and her own experiences as a person of mixed race growing up in the deep South.

In this recording from the 2010 Key West Literary Seminar, Trethewey reads a selection of poems including “Limen,” “Genus Narcissus,” “Myth,” “Miscegenation,” “Taxonomy,” and “Knowledge: After a Chalk Drawing by J.H. Hasselhorst, 1864.”

From KWLS 2010: Clearing the Sill of the World (17:57) / 10.3 MB

“War Baby/Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art”

Critical Ethnic Studies Association Conference
University of California, Riverside
Critical Ethnic Studies and the Future of Genocide: Settler Colonialism/Heteropatriarchy/White Supremacy
2011-03-10 through 2011-03-12

Laura Kina, Associate Professor of Art, Media, and Design and distinguished Vincent de Paul Professor
DePaul University

Wei Ming Dariotis, Associate Professor Asian American Studies
San Francisco State University

Gina Osterloh, Artist
Silverlens Gallery, Manila Philippines
François Ghebaly, Los Angeles

“War Baby/Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art” investigates the construction of mixed race/mixed heritage Asian American (or, controversially, “Hapa”) identity in the United States. As an increasingly ethnically ambiguous Asian American generation is coming of age in an era of “optional identity,” “War Baby/Love Child” examines how, or even if, mixed Asian Americans are addressing their hybrid identities in their artwork.

For more information, click here.

“Mixed Race, White Mother: Love and Identity in the Age of Obama”

8th Floor, Raymond Hall
State University of New York, Potsdam
2011-03-22, 16:00 EST (Local Time)

Dr. Traci Fordham-Hernandez, Associate Professor of Performance and Communication Arts
St. Lawrence University

Part of the SUNY Potsdam Women’s and Gender Studies Anne R. Malone Lecture Series.

For more information, click here.

A Critical Race Theory Approach to Understanding Cinematic Representations of the Mixed Race Experience

Center for Race & Gender
University of California, Berkeley
2010-12-08

10/5/2010 CRG Forum: Mixed Race/Mixed Space in Media Culture & Militarized Zones
“A Critical Race Theory Approach to Understanding Cinematic Representations of the Mixed Race Experience”

Kevin Escudero, Ethnic Studies

This presentation focuses on the developmental trajectory of the portrayal of mixed race people in mainstream media.  Primarily looking at film, but also analyzing other media texts such as photography, stand-up comedy and particular sub-genres of film (Disney, television series, etc.) this presentation seeks to understand the ways in which different forms of media have portrayed mixed race people pre and post-Loving.  While much work has been done on the depiction of mixed race people in media post-Loving, there is a need for such work to be contextualized within the pre-Loving depictions of mixed race.  Furthermore, very little attention has been given to the ways in which pre-1967 depictions of mixed race characters (e.g. the tragic mulatto) oftentimes reflect as well as perpetuated racist stereotypes of mixed race people.  These depictions of mixed race people during the anti-miscegenation era are what I argue, has given rise to the utilization by mixed race people of multiple forms of self-expression available through various media in the post-Loving era.

Listen to the presentation here.

World Premiere of “Family Portrait in Black and White” at 2011 Sundance Film Festival

Family Portrait in Black and White
2011
Interfilm Productions, Inc.
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Directed by: Julia Ivanova
Producted by Boris Ivanov

OLGA NENYA is a foster mother to SIXTEEN BLACK ORPHANS in Ukraine—where 99.9% of the population is white and where race DOES matter. Forced to constantly defend themselves from racist neighbors and skinheads, these children have to be on guard against the world that surrounds them.

No one is related by blood in this family, but everyone is connected by the color of their skin and by the woman who chose to be their foster mother. Olga is a loving mother but she is not Mother Teresa; she bears much more resemblance to a platoon leader. Some kids have learned to manipulate her, some obey, and only one constantly battles with her. Kiril, a 16-year-old boy nicknamed ‘Mr. President’ for his intelligence and effortless aristocracy, is the one who dares to openly argue with Olga—and pays dearly for it. The modern world is interconnected: not only did the British Charity buy the house for the family, but these kids from a tiny place in Ukraine have been spending summers with host families in France and Italy year after year. When European families offer to adopt the kids, Olga refuses despite being aware of what awaits a black Ukrainian beyond the protective shield of her family. For her, these children already have a family and, as she says, “The bird should only have one nest”. This film is a multi-dimensional portrait of one family, the country they live in, and the bigger world they are a part of.

For more information, click here.

2010-12-01
Park City, Utah

PARK CITY, UT – Sundance Institute announced today the lineup of films selected to screen in the U.S. and World Cinema Dramatic and Documentary Competitions for the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. In addition to the four Competition Categories, the Festival presents films in six out-of-competition sections to be announced on December 2. The 2011 Sundance Film Festival runs January 20-30 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah. The complete list of films is available at www.sundance.org/festival…

…World Cinema Documentary Competition

This year’s 12 films were selected from 796 international documentary submissions.

Family Portrait in Black and White / Canada (Director: Julia Ivanova) – In a small Ukrainian town, Olga Nenya, raises 16 black orphans amidst a population of Slavic blue-eyed blondes. Their stories expose the harsh realities of growing up as a bi-racial child in Eastern Europe. World Premiere

Slimy subjects? Barack Obama, Mixed-Race Metaphors & Neoliberal Multiculturalism

The Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation
University of Hull
Oriel Chambers
27 High Street, Hull, HU1 1NE [Map]
Thursday, 2010-12-02, 16:30-18:00Z

Daniel McNeil, Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies
University of Newcastle

Public Lecture.  For more information, click here.

Video from 2010 Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference at DePaul now available on iTunes U

If you missed the Nov 5-6, 2010 “Emerging Paradigms in Critical Mixed Race Studies” conference or any of the keynote talks or the welcoming address, you can now download the videos via Apple’s iTunes U.

Here is a link to the following videos:

• November 5th (00:19:48): Welcoming Remarks by DePaul’s Liberal Arts & Sciences Dean Charles Suchar and conference organizers Camilla Fojas, Wei Ming Dariotis, and Laura Kina.
• November 5th (00:50:36): Keynote Address by Andrew Jolivette, “Critical Mixed Race Studies: New Directions in the Politics of Race and Representation”
• November 6th(01:00:04): Keynote Address by Mary Beltrán, “Everywhere and Nowhere: Mediated Mixed Race and Mixed Race Critical Studies”
• November 6th (00:57:08): Keynote Address by Louie Gong, “Halfs and Have Nots”

Please note that your computer must have Apple’s iTunes installed in order to view the video.  It can be download here.