Lecture: The Physics of Blackness: Reconsidering the African Diaspora in the Postwar Era
UMass Amherst is sponsoring a W.E.B. DuBois Lecture Series entitled “Race and the New Europe: Black Europeans.” Supported by the Dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts’ “Visioning” program and co-sponsored by many departments and programs from the Five Colleges, six experts on questions on “race” in contemporary France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Sweden will visit our campus over the course of the year to give a public lecture, conduct a seminar with faculty and graduate students, and conduct a class for undergraduates.
The first speaker is Professor Michelle Wright of the University of Minnesota. Prof. Wright, author of Becoming Black: Creating Identity in the African Diaspora, will present a talk on “The Physics of Blackness: Reconsidering the African Diaspora in the Postwar Era."
The W.E.B. DuBois Lecture Series pays tribute to DuBois, a pioneering theorist of the transnational dimensions of “race” issues, by examining the complex histories and identities of Blacks within contemporary European cultures and societies.
The series is organized by Prof. Sara Lennox and Prof. Jonathan Skolnik, from the Program in German and Scandinavian Studies in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures.