Department of English

Challenging Anti-Blackness in Literary Studies

The Brandeis English Department, with the support of the Center for Teaching and Learning and the Mandel Center for the Humanities, presented a yearlong speaker series called "Challenging Anti-Blackness in Literary Studies." The goal of the series was to understand how race and anti-Blackness have structured the field of literary studies across a range of subfields, with an eye towards reshaping the department curriculum to attend more directly to these histories.

Manu Chander
"Medii Homines: Toward a Critical Ontology of Brownness"

Professor Manu Chander, Rutgers University

2-3:30 p.m. Friday, April 28, 2023

Kyle Grady
"Better to the Commonwealth:" Merchant, Mixedness and Demographic Revision

Professor Kyle Grady, University of California, Irvine

2-3:30 p.m. March 24, 2023

Cassander Smith
"Teaching to Learn: The Stakes of Anti-Racist Pedagogy for Literary Studies"

Professor Cassander Smith, University of Alabama

2-3:30 p.m. March 3, 2023

Sophia Hsu
"White Orientations in Late Victorian Slum Fiction"

Professor Sophia Hsu, Lehman College (CUNY)

2-3:30 p.m. Feb. 3, 2023

Maxwell
"Teaching Baldwin Teaching"

Professor William Maxwell, Washington University

10:30 a.m.-12 p.m. Nov. 29, 2022

Akhimie
"Race and Revision: Editing Othello"

Professor Patricia Akhimie, Rutgers University

9:30-11 a.m. Oct. 25, 2022

Stewart
"Hurston’s Secret Laughter: Contributions to African American Thought"

Professor Lindsey Stewart, University of Memphis

2-3:30 p.m. Sept. 30, 2022

Vernon
"Everyman and Everybody: The Problem of Black Matter"

Professor Matthew Vernon, UC Davis

2-3:30 p.m. Sept. 16, 2022