About this conference
The United States, supposedly founded on the “self-evident” principle of human equality, has in fact been a profoundly racially unequal society from the start. Yet for many years the striving for racial justice and racial equality has been obscured by an evasive discourse of “diversity.” Particularly with the recent rise of white nationalism, however, it has become urgently important to recognize and address the ongoing inequalities of race. This 2-day interdisciplinary conference will bring together 18 theorists from a wide array of subjects—philosophy, political theory, ethnic studies, critical psychology, urban studies, gender theory, and anthropology—to look from their distinctive perspectives at the enduring problem of racial inequality, and how it is perpetuated in a democratic society.
SPEAKERS:
Alia Al-Saji (Philosophy: McGill University)
Bernard Boxill (Philosophy: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, emeritus)
Derrick Darby (Philosophy: University of Michigan)
Michelle Fine (Critical Psychology: CUNY Grad Center)
Mark Golub (Politics: Scripps College)
Juliet Hooker (Political Science: Brown University)
Frank Kirkland (Philosophy: Hunter College & CUNY Grad Center)
Nelson Maldonado-Torres (Latino & Caribbean Studies: Rutgers University)
Howard McGary (Philosophy: Rutgers University)
José Mendoza (Philosophy: University of Massachusetts-Lowell)
Naomi Murakawa (African-American Studies: Princeton University)
Michael Paris (Political Science & Global Affairs: CUNY Staten Island)
Tommie Shelby (Philosophy: Harvard University)
Falguni Sheth (Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies: Emory University)
Stephen Steinberg (Urban Studies: Queens College & CUNY Grad Center)
Ronald Sundstrom (Philosophy: University of San Francisco)
Andrew Valls (Political Science: Oregon State)
Gary Wilder (Anthropology: CUNY Grad Center)
Co-organizers: Charles W. Mills and Linda Martín Alcoff.
CONFERENCE SCHEDULE:
Friday, March 9th (Skylight Room 9100)
9:15 a.m. – 11:15 a.m.
Panel 1: PRISON REFORM AND SOCIAL SCIENCE METHODOLOGY
Naomi Murakawa (Princeton): “Big Data and the Pursuit of a Racially Fair Carceral
State”
Tommie Shelby (Harvard): “Prison Abolition? Incarceration and the Limits of
Functional Critique”
Michelle Fine (CUNY): “Racial (In)Justice Scholarship and Epistemic Justice”
11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Panel 2: RACIAL INEQUALITY, EDUCATIONAL AND SPATIAL
Derrick Darby (Michigan): “Educating Egalitarians”
Michael Paris (CUNY): “Derrick Bell and the Lost Cause of School Desegregation”
Ronald Sundstrom (University of San Francisco): “Gentrification and Racial Inequality”
LUNCH BREAK: 1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
3:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Panel 3: WHITE RIGHTS AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS COUNTER-REVOLUTION
Mark Golub (Scripps College): “Defending White Rights”
Bernard Boxill (UNC Chapel Hill): “Race and Equality”
Stephen Steinberg (CUNY): “Race and Counter-Revolution: Rolling Back the Civil
Rights Revolution”
Saturday, March 10th (Elebash Recital Hall)
9:15 a.m. – 11:15 a.m.
Panel 4: RACE, CLASS, AND BLACK RADICAL HUMANISM
Frank Kirkland (CUNY): “Inequality and the Social/Racial Contract”
Juliet Hooker (Brown): “Race or Class Inequality? Latin American Lessons”
Gary Wilder (CUNY): “Black Radicalism, Radical Humanism, and the Good Life”
11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Panel 5: IMMIGRATION AND DECOLONIALITY
José Mendoza (U. Massachusetts-Lowell): “Decolonizing Immigration Justice”
Alia Al-Saji (McGill): “Travel Bans, Hesitation, and Racial Durations”
Nelson Maldonado-Torres (Rutgers): “Racial Inequality, Coloniality, and Decoloniality”
LUNCH BREAK: 1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
3:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Panel 6: WHITE SUPREMACY AND REPARATIVE JUSTICE
Falguni Sheth (Emory): “Violence and the Worldly Comportment of White Supremacy”
Howard McGary (Rutgers): “Reparations and Collective Responsibility”
Andrew Valls (Oregon State): “Justice, Acknowledgment, and Collective Memory”
Free and open to the public.
Co-sponsored by the PhD Program in Philosophy and the Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center, CUNY.
