MONDAY, MAY 11th
LOCATION: KATHARINE SEYMOUR DAY HOUSE
1:00 P.M. Meeting Opening: ENGAGING RICHARD WRIGHT AS A POLITICAL THINKER,
Ernie Zirakzadeh, Political Science, UCONN and Jane Gordon, Political Science & Africana Studies, UCONN
1:30 P.M. Panel I: BLACK SUBJECTIVITY
James Haile, Philosophy, Dickinson College,
111A Cryptic Tongue’: Richard Wright’s Phenomenological Sociology”
Lewis Gordon, Philosophy & Africana Studies, UCONN
“Richard Wright’s Black Consciousness, Steve Biko’s Politics”
3:15P.M. Panel II: RADICAL POLITICS
George Ciccariello-Maher, Politics and History, Drexel University,“Bigger’s Being, Wright’s Lumpen”
Marilyn Nissim-Sabat, Philosophy, Lewis University,
“Conceiving a New Politics: Richard Wright, Simone de Beauvoir, and the Future of Critical Theory”
Dorothy Stringer, English,Temple University,
“Psychology and Black Liberation in Richard Wright’s Black Power (1954)”
TUESDAY, MAY 12th
LOCATION: MARK TWAIN CENTER
9:30 A.M. Panel Ill: ENGENDERED VIOLENCE
Floyd Hayes, Political Science & Africana Studies,Johns Hopkins University, “Womanizing Richard Wright: Constructing the Black Feminine in The Outsider” Tommy Curry, Philosophy and Africana Studies,Texas A&M University,
“Man of Work:The Rape and Execution of Willie McGee”
11:00 A.M. Panel IV: RHETORICAL REGISTERS
William Dow,Comparative Literature & English, American University of Paris,
“Richard Wright’s Literary Journalism: Reprimanding Race, Resisting Modernism”
Ernie Zirakzadeh, Political Science, UCONN,
“Modernist Culture and American Fascism: Bigger as Harbinger of White Politics”
Stephen Marshall, American Studies & African and African Diaspora Studies, University of Texas, Austin,
“The Prophetic Wright”
2:15 P.M. Panel V: UNCLE TOM’S GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN
Jane Gordon, Political Science & Africana Studies, UCONN,“Slavery, Continued: Uncle Tom’s Grandchildren”
Laura Grattan, Political Science,Wellesley College,
“The Refusal to Compromise with Reality: Wright and Prison Abolitionism”
Generously sponsorsed by the UCONN HUMANITIES INSTITUTE Questions? email jane.gordon@uconn.edu
