Please join us on Wednesday, February 17, at 6:30 pm for “How Structural Racism Works,” a Brown faculty and Postdoctoral Fellow roundtable discussion, led by Tricia Rose, Director, Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America (CSREA) and sponsored by the Office of the Provost. The discussion will focus on the role of structural racism in contemporary US society and its relationships to neoliberalism, racial ideology, immigration, gender, poverty and more.

Structural racism–the normalized and legitimized range of policies, practices, and attitudes that routinely produce cumulative and chronic adverse outcomes for people of color, especially black people–is the main driver of racial inequality in America today. Professor Tricia Rose's compelling new in-progress research, video and public engagement project called "How Structural Racism Works" serves as the foundation for this important lecture/workshop series. Over the course of the spring and fall 2016 semesters, the project considers five key areas that propel structural racism: housing, education, wealth, criminal justice, and mass media.

Adam Mansbach - whose work spans the #1 worldwide bestselling "children's book for adults" Go the Fuck to Sleep, the award-winning novels Rage is Back, Angry Black White Boy and The End of the Jews, and the screenplay for the forthcoming feature film Barry - discusses the through-line in his work: exploring complexity, paradox, and uncomfortable truths as a way to foster social change... and recalls what happens when a literary novelist finds himself with a surprise hit in a genre that doesn't even exist.

Organized around feminist and queer approaches to performance and unconventional archives, this event brings interdisciplinary scholars Deb Vargas(UC Riverside), Dixa Ramírez (Yale) and renown performance artist Nao Bustamante together to discuss Latina suciedad (dirtyness) and abjection as the basis for politicized aesthetics.

Moderated by Leticia Alvarado, Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnic Studies, Brown University.

A CSREA Faculty Grant Event.

Just as blues influenced the Harlem Renaissance and Jazz influenced the Black Arts Movement, Hip-Hop's musical and cultural force has shaped the aesthetics and given rise to a new generation of American poets.

Join us as we welcome contributors to the new poetry anthology The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop-- a multi-generational examination of life and poetry in the age of hip hop. The book features 78 poets, born between 1961-1999, who are employing traditional and wildstyle poetics to narrate a new country and city landscape.

This symposium and October 1 Keynote + Poetry Performance mark the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Katrina in New Orleans. Katrina After Tenbrings together activists, artists, and intellectuals to discuss critical issues such as environmental racism, gender discrimination, gentrification, mass incarceration, education and privatization; as well as the history and future of social movements in the city.

This CSREA event and October 2 symposium mark the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Katrina in New Orleans. 

5:00 p.m. Performance by New Orleans poet and activist Sunni Patterson

6:00 p.m. Keynote Lecture: Professor George Lipsitz, UC Santa Barbara, "Walking With New Orleans: Where Do We Go From Here"

September 2015 - May 2016

The prevailing images that we see of Native Americans are often antiquated stereotypes and do not reflect the diversity, vibrancy, or modernity of Native peoples. "Native inspired" trends and images are everywhere: in popular culture, fashion, hollywood, and music, and conversations about cultural appropriation have become more mainstream. Yet Native voices are largely absent.