Kathleen Boyd (English)

Sooja Kelsey

Jason Morse (English)

Jed Murr (English)

Christian Ravela (English)

Suzanne Schmidt (English)

Pacharee Sudhinaraset (English)

Simon Trujillo (English)

www.raceknowledgeproject.org

The Race/Knowledge Project is dedicated to ruminating on the contemporary status of race within what is increasingly understood as the “global” university. The contours of this year-long research program include public lectures, roundtables, study groups, and a symposium centered on how “anti-racist praxis” might negotiate the discourses of the colorblind, multicultural university, which most often work to, at best, delimit and, at worst, disallow conversations about race/racism even as the university is a site for the (re)production and contestation of racial meanings. In order to understand the complex interplay of specific global and racial histories of Seattle and the University of Washington, our project is designed to move in and between domains, bodies of work, and spatial scales. In order to plot new concepts of “anti-racist praxis,” our trajectory moves back and forth between the university and other publics; between the global/national and the local; between the work of academic, artist, and activist intellectuals. The events are designed to build upon one another so that, as the year progresses, those involved will garner multiple ways of thinkning about “anti-racist praxis” ranging from a nationally-recognized academic scholar to lesser-known public artist intellectuals and culminating in an event that brings together local individuals and groups interested in pursuing an “anti-racist praxis.”

Cultural Workers Unite!: Talking Race, Performing Resistance
Thursday, February 26, 2009
6:00pm-9:00pm
Communications 120

Please join The Race/Knowledge Project for the second installment in our series of events exploring the circulation of racial meanings within the University and across multiple communities. We present a night of performance, readings, and discussion about anti-racism, activism, art, and culture with poet and musician Amber Flame, Emcee Geologic of the Blue Scholars, and author Nisi Shawl, moderated by Michelle Habell-Pallán (Women Studies and the School of Music). The conversation will focus on how these cultural workers use their work to examine the interconnections between race, history, power, and representation.