African American Scholars, Activists and Artists Gather at Temple University
May 2, 2008
Stand Up! The New Politics of Racial Uplift
A Public Philosophy Symposium
Temple University
Friday, May 2nd, 2008
9am to 5pm
Kiva Auditorium and Tuttleman Learning Center, Room 101
For information about participants, schedule, and work by participants and material relevant to symposium themes, go to our website:
http://www.temple.edu/philosoph
Purpose of Symposium:
The Millions More Movement, Cosby’s ‘call-outs,’ and other recent trends renew an old approach to black political thought and practice. The racial uplift tradition tries to improve the conditions of black life by insisting on moral refinement and race-based organization. Uplift ideology and practice have a long and storied past, but critics of the tradition worry over its limitations. Some express concern that it is anti-democratic, intolerant, elitist, sexist, and heterosexist. Others think it focuses too much on personal morality and cultural pathology and not enough on social justice and political economy.
The participants in the ‘Stand Up!’ symposium will think through the risks and rewards of this new racial uplift politics. This interdisciplinary exercise in public philosophy will explore the implications of a social phenomenon with broad ethical significance. The new politics of racial uplift emerges from a widely shared conviction that something is deeply wrong in American society. Our public philosophy conference will take this judgment seriously, and subject this politics to searching and critical scrutiny.
Confirmed Participants:
Angela D. Dillard, Afroamerican and African Studies and Residential College, LSA, at the University of Michigan
Kenyon Farrow, essayist, organizer, media and communications specialist, and board co-chair for Queers for Economic Justice
Kevin Gaines, Afroamerican and African Studies and History at the University of Michigan
Kathryn T. Gines, African American and Diaspora Studies and Philosophy at Vanderbilt University
Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., Religion and African American Studies at Princeton University and the Jamestown Project
Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Women’s Research and Resource Center and the Women’s Studies at Spelman College
Joy James, Humanities and Political Science at Williams College and Senior Research Fellow in the Center for African and African American Studies at the University of Texas-Austin
Adolph Reed, Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania
Jared Sexton, African American Studies and Film & Media Studies at the University of California, Irvine
Aishah Shahidah Simmons, AfroLez® Productions and award-winning African-American feminist lesbian documentary filmmaker, international lecturer, writer, activist, and producer, writer, and director of the internationally acclaimed documentary NO!
Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr., Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard University Law School and the Jamestown Project
Paul C. Taylor, Philosophy at Temple University and the Jamestown Project
Sponsors:
Temple University Department of Philosophy, the Office of the Provost, the College of Liberal Arts, the Center for Humanities at Temple, the Ira Lawrence Family Fund, and the Jamestown Project
The symposium is free and open to the public.
For more information, contact Tamara K. Nopper, assistant organizer, at tnopper (at) temple.edu
Tamara K. Nopper’s Testimonial on NO!
March 20, 2008
“When I attended a fundraising event for NO! in New York several years ago, I watched an African American woman scholar artistically explore her survival of sexual assault. As a graduate student who has spent most of my professional life in academia, I had by that time observed how badly Black women are treated at all levels of the university. And I knew that this treatment was not isolated to academic spaces. Having seen, listened, and read about how Black women are racistly and sexistly perceived by men, women, and children of all races and sexualities, I was familiar with many of the themes in NO! Perhaps this is why I had such an emotional political response to watching this Black woman scholar talk about her sexual assault. I knew it was a great risk for her to draw attention to how she was attacked when racist and sexist imagery of Black women declares that they are unable to be violated because they are supposedly over-sexual. And having been in front of a classroom myself, I know that students pick you apart, watch your body, and judge you at every turn. Most students evaluate non-white teachers–and particularly Black teachers–with no remorse, and often in sexualized ways. So to watch a Black woman scholar demand documentation of her pain, to draw attention to her body, to tell her side of the story was simply…everything in the world. This is what NO! does: along with sharing the powerful stories of those in the film, it creates a space for those of us watching it to locate ourselves. In the process, NO! forces you on an emotional and political roller coaster ride. In my case, I left that fundraiser knowing I could no longer act as if what I knew I did not know, and what I saw I did not see. That’s perhaps the most beautiful and scary part of viewing NO!–once you watch it, there is no turning back.”
Tamara K. Nopper, educator and writer
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By N2H
