Wednesday, 18 September 2013

Black History Month 2013




The School of American Studies is running a number of free public events to coincide with Black History Month. Led by UEA staff and postgraduates, all of these talks are completely free and will be held at the Norwich Millennium Library as well as Fusion at the Forum (see event listings below). They will cover a range of subjects from Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation to the Anti-Apartheid movement in Norwich. If you'd like any more information about any of these events, or AMS's involvement in Black History Month as a whole, please email Dr. Nick Grant (n.grant@uea.ac.uk).

Full list of events:

Title: ‘“Forever Free?” Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the Real Meaning of Freedom’ – Dr. Becky Fraser (UEA)
Venue: Norwich Millennium Library
Date: 1st October
Time: 6-7:30 pm
Nature of Event: Talk
Cost: Free

In the 150th year anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all enslaved peoples in the Confederate States of America, this lecture will consider the very complex and complicated dimensions of freedom for the nearly four million enslaved peoples the Proclamation applied to. In addition it will question whether Lincoln can be, and indeed should be, hailed as the Great Emancipator, given the limits of the actual declaration and its historical legacies.


Title: ‘Collection and Commemoration: Slavery in Sight and Memory’ – Nicole Willson (UEA)
Venue: Norwich Millennium Library
Date: 10th October
Time: 12-1:30 pm
Nature of Event: Talk
Cost: Free

This talk looks at visual representations of slavery in museums and memorial sites across the United Kingdom. It considers the unseen and the unsaid in such commemorative spaces and addresses the idea that the practice of memorialisation is twinned with forgetting. Contemplating the evolution of museological practice from the birth of the modern museum in the eighteenth century, it also ponders whether such practices can offer restitution and for whom, if they do, this restitution serves. 


Title: ‘Warrior Marks: Alice Walker’s Writing’ – Dr. Rebecca Tillett (UEA)
Venue: Norwich Millennium Library
Date: 15th October
Time: 6-7:30 pm
Nature of Event: Talk
Cost: Free

The controversy surrounding both the publication of the Pulitzer Prize winning The Color Purple (1982) and Steven Spielberg’s 1985 film adaptation focused on claims that Walker had refused a full focus on racism in order to discuss African American women’s experiences of sexism in the 1930s American South. Moreover, Walker’s depiction of often fraught relationships and power dynamics between African American men and women, and within black families was condemned as fuelling racist stereotypes. Taking The Color Purple as a starting point, this lecture will assess the relationship between Walker’s writing and her own  passionate and ongoing commitment to political commentary and activism.


Title: ‘The Local Dimension of the Anti-Apartheid Movement: the Case of Norfolk’ – Dr. Nick Grant (UEA)
Venue: Norwich Millennium Library
Date: 16th October
Time: 6-7:30 pm
Nature of Event: Talk
Cost: Free

This talk will address the materials that make up the Global Anti-Apartheid Movement in Norwich exhibition. It will explore the contributions of local businesses, politicians and students in Norwich to the international consumer boycott of apartheid South Africa. 


Title: Racial Profiling: The Case of Trayvon Martin – Prof. Charles Lumpkins (Penn State University)
Date: 24th October 2013
Nature of event: Talk
Venue: Fusion, the Forum, Norwich
Time: 6–7:30 pm – Talk followed by Q&A.
Cost: Free
  
Prof. Charles Lumpkins will discuss the recent trial and acquittal of George Zimmerman for the murder of the African American teenager Trayvon Martin. He will analyse the racial significance of the case in the US as well as the continued problem of racial profiling in the United States and the United Kingdom. Prof. Lumpkins is lecturer in the School of Labor and Employment Relations at Pennsylvania State University. His research focuses on the history of African Americans with particular interests relating to the history of social and political movements, the history of the working-class. He 2008 he published American Pogrom: The East St. Louis Race Riot and Black Politics with Ohio University Press.



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