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.

Coloring the "Boys Will be Boys" Chronicle: Gender, Race, and Early Childhood Behavior Problems Across Two Decades

Jayanti Owens, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Public Policy.

This intimate, seminar-style discussion will present an opportunity for faculty and students to learn more about Edwidge Danticat's inspirations, influences, and methods. Participants are expected to have a familiarity with her work and come prepared with questions.

This intimate, seminar-style discussion will present an opportunity for faculty and students to learn more about Jesmyn Ward's inspirations, influences, and methods. Participants are expected to have a familiarity with her work and come prepared with questions.

Presented by the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America.

Writer Adam Mansbach discusses the process of creation - its constants and variables, its pitfalls and surprises – across the many genres in which he writes, including literary fiction, commercial fiction, screenplays, teleplays, children's books, obscene fake children's books, and political ads.

Please RSVP: [email protected]

Presented by the Center for the Study of Race + Ethnicity in America (CSREA)

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.

"Why Prison Abolition?"

A lecture with Joshua Dubler, University of Rochester, author of Down in the Chapel: Religious Life in American Prisons.

Sponsored by the Department of Religious Studies, the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America, the Cogut Center for the Humanities, and the Marshall Woods Fine Arts Lectureship.

This informal discussion with Professor Douglas Densmore (Boston University) presents an opportunity for students and others to learn more about his experiences as a researcher of synthetic biological systems, and talk about challenges faced by underrepresented minorities in STEM fields.

Lunch will be provided. Please RSVP by Monday, 11/9 if you would like to attend: [email protected]

Monica Martinez, Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnic Studies

Martinez will discuss her newest manuscript chapter that explores intersecting histories of violent policing regimes in the creation of race in Texas. She will also outline the advances of the digital project Mapping Violence, an interactive platform that recovers and makes visible lost and obscured histories of racial violence in Texas from 1900 - 1930. Her talk will engage questions of method, narrative, segregated histories, and the multiple lives of academic research.