About this Symposium
"Activism in Academia II" is a one-day interdisciplinary symposium organized to initiate a larger conversation between CUNY and non-CUNY faculty and students about the value of apolitical and political work in the classroom as it relates to activism within underrepresented communities. Faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates will engage in discussion and debate through various panels. This year, we will especially focus on DACA & immigration reform, the taking down of confederate statues on campuses, and LGBTQ activist archives.
#ActivisminAcademia #CUNYactivism #LehmanEnglish
PROGRAM
10:00-11:30am Structural Insurrections in Composition & Rhetoric
Lisa Blankenship (Baruch College): The Personal as Political: Narrative Argument Assignment Design
Jennifer Maloy (Queensborough): Activism in/and Administration
Carmen Kynard (John Jay College of Criminal Justice): #BlackFeminismLooksLike: The Decolonization of Composition Studies and the Movement for Black Lives
11:30-1:00pm On-Campus Activism: Protest & Performance
Monika Bhagat-Kennedy (University of Mississippi): The Controversy over Contextualization: Rethinking Confederate Monuments After Charlottesville
Cristina Pérez Jiménez (Manhattan College): Aquí/Allá ― Caribbean Crisis in the Classroom
Trevor Weston (Drew University): Time-Binding: Composing Music to Document Conflict and Resistance
1:00-2:00pm Lunch Reception
2:00-4:00pm Student Panels Visibility through Scholarship: Undocumented & Unheard Voices
Moderator: Jessica Yood (Lehman College)
Arlinda Mulosmanaj (Lehman College): A Poet’s Role: Identity, Nationalism, and the Activism of Hysen Mulosmanaj
Lucero Luna (Lehman College)
Nicholas Santiago (Lehman College): To Live Again: Digital Rhetoric and First-Year Composition
Zoe Fanzo (Lehman College): Assistants or Assailants of Radical Activity?: Queer Student Activism on New York College Campuses
4:00-6:00pm Activist Archives & Histories
Nermeen Arastu (CUNY Law School): Aspiring Americans “Thrown Out in the Cold”: The Race-Infused Politics of Naturalization
Amaka Okechukwu (George Mason): How We Tell Stories, How We Get Free: Praxis at the Intersection of the Street, Field, & Archive
Simon Reader (Staten Island College): 25 Years Queer: The CLAGS Archive of CUNY
Mary Phillips (Lehman College): Liberation From Prison: Panther Ericka Huggins Revolutionary Work Behind Bars
Co-sponsored by the Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center, CUNY, the Office of Recruitment and Diversity at CUNY, the Lehman College Department of English, and the Lehman College City and Humanities Program. This symposium was made possible by a Diversity Projects Development Fund grant.
