The lives and challenges of being black or of African descent in Europe are explored this semester in the Black Europe and the African Diaspora lecture and film series at Vanderbilt University.
Convened by Trica Danielle Keaton, associate professor of African American and Diaspora Studies, and co-sponsored by a number of units at Vanderbilt, the series takes the audience on an adventure through England, France, Spain, Germany, Ireland, Norway, The Netherlands, indeed, the diaspora itself.
“As a variety of observers document, blacks in and of Europe continually confront racism, racialized violence, and discrimination in countries that are their contested homes,” Keaton said. “The Black Europe series seeks to draw much-needed light to these issues.”
All the lectures and films are free and open to the public.
The schedule:
5:10 p.m. Jan. 27, What is Europe? Who is European: The EU Project, a lecture by John A. McCarthy, professor of European studies, Vanderbilt, in Room 109 Calhoun Hall.
5:10 p.m. Feb. 3, Conceptual Games and the Writing of Diaspora Histories, a lecture by Tiffany Patterson, associate professor of African American and Diaspora Studies, Vanderbilt, at the Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center.
4:10 p.m. Feb. 10, Historicizing the Black Atlantic, Comparative Colonialism and Transnational Citizenship, a conversation between Mamadou Diouf, professor of Western Africa history, Columbia, and Toyin Falola, Frances Higginbotham Nalle Centennial Professor in History and a Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, moderated by Moses Ochonu, assistant professor of history, at the Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center.
5:10 p.m. Feb. 24, Race and Migration to Britain: Love thy Neighbor … Who Shouldn’t Be Here in the First Place, a lecture by Stephen Small, associate professor, African American Studies, University of California, Berkeley, in Room 109 Calhoun Hall.
5:10 p.m. March 17, Fused Encounters: Reading Images and Experiences of Race in 20th Century Germany, a lecture by Vera Grant, executive director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, Harvard University, in Room 109 Calhoun Hall.
5:10 p.m. March 24, Shades of Blackness, Degrees of Belonging: Race and Assimilation in Spain, a lecture by Michelle Shepherd, Mellon Assistant Professor of Spanish, Vanderbilt, in Room 109 Calhoun Hall.
5:10 p.m. March 31, Deporting Permanence: Deportations, Anti-Racism and the Making of Black Ireland, a lecture by Elisa Joy White, assistant professor of ethnic studies, University of Hawaii, in the Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center.
4:10 p.m. April 2, Germany-focused film TBA, introduced and contextualized by Peggy Piesche, visiting instructor of German and Russian, Hamilton College, in the Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center
5:10 p.m. April 7, It’s Not All Black and White: Historical Representations of Black People and Contemporary Black and White in the Netherlands, a lecture by Gerrit Dielissen, university docent at Urtrecht University, in Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center.
7 p.m. April 8, screening of films Saidi’s Song and Shadows of Dawn in the presence of filmmaker Chike Kani Omo, moderated by Frank Dobson, director of the Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center, in Commons Center MPR 235/237.
5 p.m. April 9, screening of film Harlem in Montmartre: A Paris Jazz Story in the presence of filmmaker Dante James and Tracy Sharpley-Whiting, director of the African American and Diaspora Studies Program, Vanderbilt, in Sarratt Cinema.
5:10 p.m. April 14, Race, Innocence and Precarious Subjectivity in Norway, a lecture by Laurie McIntosh, assistant professor of cultural anthropology, Duke University, in the Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center.
The Black Europe and the African Diaspora lecture and film series is sponsored by African American and Diaspora Studies, Office of Arts and Creative Engagement, Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center, College of Arts and Science, The Commons (Crawford, Gillette, Stambaugh Houses), The English Speakers Committee and Department of English, The Max Kade Center for European and German Studies, Department of French and Italian, Film Studies Program, Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages, Department of History, International Black Film Festival of Nashville, International Lens Film Series, International Student and Scholar Services, Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities, and Department of Spanish and Portuguese.