The Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change and the Scholars in Critical Race Studies Conference (SCRS) seek submissions for their fourth annual colloquium. The conference will examine what the candidacy of Barack Obama reveals about the contemporary impact of race on American politics, civil society, and discourse. Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Pastor Emeritus of Trinity United Church of Christ, will deliver a keynote address. Please send all inquiries or proposals to: drmcfrrn@memphis.edu. The deadline for 200-250 word abstracts of 30-minute papers is November 18, 2008. Please also send a short CV with the proposal. Selected papers will be published in the journal Patterns of Prejudice.

Scholars affiliated with the Hooks Institute and the SCRS examine the historical evolution and contemporary expression of race as a social category for discriminating, organizing, regulating and maintaining social difference. By revealing that racial categories emerge in specific contexts that are connected to power, politics, economics and culture, these scholars destabilize those categories as natural or transhistorical. The point is to disclose how race operates in differing situations and texts, in order to undermine the force of racism. The SCRS is an interdisciplinary forum that seeks to facilitate a conversation by scholars across the humanities and social sciences, including Philosophy, Literature, History, Foreign Languages, Political Science, Sociology, Anthropology, and Jewish Studies.

This colloquium was made possible by the generosity of the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change and the Marcus W. Orr Center for the Humanities.

Submissions are welcome in the following categories; however, the suggested topics below are by no means exclusive.

• Expressions of and responses to racism related to the Obama candidacy
• Obama and Islamophobia
• Affluence, education and race: are racial differences more significant than economic or educational differences?
• The Michelle Obama Phenomenon: African-American women and negative stereotypes
• White fear of the African-American church
• Reception of the Obama candidacy by African-Americans and other people of color