Blackness and Anti-Blackness in American Public Life

Blackness has been (and continues to be) under attack globally, but particularly within our country. As colleges and universities across America begin to grapple with some of the wider ranging and material effects of racism, particularly anti-Blackness, three scholars will hold a joint book talk to chart cultural histories of Blackness through law, politics, and media. Featured authors include:

• Lisa M. Corrigan, Black Feelings: Race and the Affect in the Long Sixties
• Alfred L. Martin, Jr., The Generic Closet: Black Gayness and the Black-Cast Sitcom
• Anjali Vats, The Color of Creatorship: Intellectual Property, Race, and the Making of Americans

This symposium is co-sponsored by the Institute of Communications Research and the Department of Communication.

About the presenters:

Lisa M. Corrigan is a Professor of Communication, Director of the Gender Studies Program, and Affiliate Faculty in both African & African American Studies and Latin American Studies in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas. Corrigan is author of Prison Power: How Prison Politics Influenced the Movement for Black Liberation and Black Feelings: Race and Affect in the Long Sixties. Her works has been published in the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Communication & Critical/Cultural Studies, Advances in the History of Rhetoric, Women & Language, Communication Quarterly, The National Journal of Urban Education and Practice, The Journal of Post-Colonial Writing, Intertexts, QED: A Journal in Queer Worldmaking, and Review of Communication. She co-hosts a popular podcast with Laura Weiderhaft called Lean Back: Critical Feminist Conversations.

Alfred L. Martin, Jr. is Assistant Professor of media studies in the Department of Communication Studies and the program in African American Studies at University of Iowa. He is author of The Generic Closet: Black Gayness and the Black-Cast Sitcom and has published scholarship in International Journal of Cultural Studies, Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, Communication, Culture & Critique, Feminist Media Studies, Popular Communication, and Television and New Media. 

Anjali Vats is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Communication and African and African Diaspora Studies at Boston College. She also holds a courtesy appointment in the Boston College Law School. Vats also serve as a Visiting Consultant with Microsoft Research New England’s Social Media Collective. She is the author of The Color of Creatorship: Intellectual Property, Race, and the Making of Americans and has published scholarship in Quarterly Journal of Speech, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Communication, Culture & Critique, the Howard Journal of Communications, Southern Communication Journal, and the Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal.