A conference sponsored by the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis “Narratives of Power” Project, directed by Deborah Gray White and Donna Murch
November 9-11, 2011

Wednesday Evening, November 9, 7:30pm:
Location: Trayes Hall B, Douglass Campus Center

Bernice Johnson Reagon:
“Eyes Wide Open, Ears Clear: Moving Forward with the Ground Under My Feet” (Reception to follow)

Thursday, November 10:
Location: Teleconference Lecture Hall, Alexander Library, 4th Floor Teleconference Room, College Avenue Campus

9am-10:45pm:
Rethinking Black Electoral Politics in the Age of Obama

Derek Musgrove, University of the District of Columbia/Hasan Jeffries, The Ohio State University: “Black Visibility is not Black Power:" Lessons on Black Political Mobilization and Voter Suppression from the Post-Civil Rights Era for the Age of Obama”

Melanye Price, Rutgers University: “Black Blame: Barack Obama, Racial Rhetoric, and the 2008 Election”

Wendy Smooth, The Ohio State University: “When Intersectionality Matters: The Shifting Political Opportunity Structure of Black Electoral Politics in the Age of Obama”

Discussant: Herb Boyd, City College of New York and the College of New Rochelle

11am-12:45pm:
From Black Modern to Post-Black: African American Identity in the Twentieth Century

Nancy Boyd-Franklin, Rutgers University: “The Evolving Concept of Racial Identity”

Howard McGary, Rutgers University: “The Problem of Identity in a Postracial Society”

Deborah Gray White, Rutgers University: “The Million Man and Woman Marches as Post Black Phenomena”

Discussant: Edward Ramsamy, Rutgers University

2:30-4:15pm: Black Aesthetics and Politics: From Black Power to Hip Hop

Deborah Thomas, University of Pennsylvania: “I-Witnessing and Reparations: Archiving State Violence Against Rastafari”

Billy Woodberry, California Institute of the Arts
Armond White, Film Critic

Discussant: William Jelani Cobb, Rutgers University

Thursday Evening, 7pm Location: Brower Commons, Rooms A, B & C (2nd Floor), College Avenue Campus

Talk and Performance: DJ Kool Herc, Father of Hip Hop (Reception to Follow)

Friday, November 11
Location: Teleconference Lecture Hall, Alexander Library (4th Floor Teleconference Room), College Avenue Campus

9am-10:45pm:
Engendering Blackness: Sex Matters in African American History

Rhonda Y. Williams, Case Western Reserve University: "Sister, how are you welcome in this house?: Meditations on Democratizing the Past"

Steven G. Fullwood, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture: “Naming and Unnaming: A Look at Black Queer Identities”

Timothy Stewart-Winter, Rutgers University-Newark: “‘She Made It Her Business to Hire Every Gay Girl on the South Side’: Toward a History of Black Queer Marginality"

Discussant: Nancy Hewitt, Rutgers University

11am-12:45pm:
Roundtable Discussion: Debating Mass Incarceration and the “New Jim Crow”

Heather Thompson, Temple University

Robert T. Chase, College of Charleston

Discussant: Donna Murch, Rutgers University

2:30-4:15pm:
Reinventing the Black Subject: Black Biography and the Politics of Authenticity

Barbara Ransby, University of Illinois at Chicago: "Testifying and Truth-telling: Reflections on the Life of 'Mrs. Paul Robeson'"

Yohuru Williams, Fairfield University: “‘Tell the World I am Ready to Go:’ The Execution Narrative and the Politics of Race in Twentieth Century America”

Thomas Jackson, University of North Carolina at Greensboro: “Nonviolent Gandhian Black American Christian Socialist: Crosscurrents in the Biography and Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.”

Discussant: Mia Bay, Rutgers University

Take-Away Session 4:15 – An audience participation session on the ideas presented at the conference chaired by Donna Murch and Deborah Gray White

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO REGISTER, PLEASE VISIT www.narrativesofpower.com