CSREA's New Book Talk series highlights new and notable work in the study of race, ethnicity, and indigeneity from scholars both internal and external to Brown. The aim is to facilitate thought-provoking and critical engagement with emerging scholarship that helps the campus community understand how we study, research, and engage with the analysis of race, ethnicity, and indigeneity. In addition, these events provide important spaces for students, faculty, and fellows to familiarize themselves with new literature and ask detailed questions of writers in a constructive environment. During the Fall semester, the Center will invite four authors representing a wide spread of focus areas and disciplinary lenses for virtual discussions.
The first installment brings Brown's own Kevin Quashie, who will speak about his most recent work "Black Aliveness, or a Poetics of Being." Published by Duke University Press, the book imagines a world where we are confronted with a flood of Black aliveness rather than Black death. Quashie performs this analysis through the lens of poetry, building his theories from the radical words of feminist poets like Clifton, Lorde, and Morrison. His talk will be moderated by Andre C. Willis, an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Brown.
The next event turns our attention to Native life in Providence. Written by Brown Professor of Anthropology Patricia Rubertone, "Native Providence: Memory, Community, and Survivance in the Northeast" studies how the city that houses our campus has contributed to the erasure and subjugation of local tribes. Despite its modest size, Providence had the third-largest Native American population in the United States by 1910. Through deep study of a varied archive, Rubertone unearths the meaningful attachments to land and community made by these families and individuals within the city and beyond, and tracks their transition alongside Providence's rapid development. Her talk will be moderated by Paja Faudree, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Brown.
November brings legal scholar Laura E. Gómez from the University of California Los Angeles. Her work, "Inventing Latinos: A New Story of American Racism" charts the creation of the Latinx racial identity. It poses crucial questions as the Latino population in the United States grows past 20%--How does racism make some people's race less malleable than others? Is race something we choose, or something we are given by others? Gómez's legally-based perspective charts how the policies and attitudes of White supremacy adapt to control and confine new racial groups. Her talk will be moderated by Laura López-Sanders, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Brown.
The final installment occurs in December, with Stephon Alexander's "Fear of a Black Universe: An Outsider's Guide to the Future of Physics." In the work, Alexander offers three principles that shape the universe with their inconsistency--invariance, quantum change, and emergence--in support of the theory that great physics requires scientists to embrace the excluded, listen to the unheard, and be unafraid of being wrong. His talk will be moderated by Chris Rose, Professor of Engineering and Associate Provost for STEM Initiatives at Brown.
Through a special partnership with the Brown Bookstore, all of the titles referenced in this series will be available for purchase.