Between Reparations and Freedom: A Masterclass with Rinaldo Walcott

March 27, -
Speaker(s): Rinaldo Walcott
Please join the From Slavery to Freedom Lab at the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute for the first Spring 2023 Masterclass series. The From Slavery to Freedom Lab supports a wide array of programs with the intent to examine the life and afterlives of slavery and emancipation, linking Duke University to the Global South. Through collaborative research, symposia, and community outreach, the Lab is a space to reflect collectively not only on slavery's enduring impact as an institution but think critically about how the legacies of resistance throughout the African Diaspora might help us to work toward liberation, inclusion, and social justice in the present.

Rinaldo Walcott is Professor at the University at Buffalo, where he holds the Carl V. Granger Chair in Africana and American Studies. He is a writer and critic. His research is in the area of Black Diaspora Cultural Studies, gender, and sexuality with interests in nations, nationalisms, multiculturalism, policy, and education broadly defined. As an interdisciplinary Black Studies scholar, Walcott has published in a wide range of venues on everything from literature to film, to theatre to music to policy. His articles have appeared in scholarly journals, books, and popular venues like newspapers, magazines, and online media sources. He often comments on black cultural life on radio and TV.

Walcott has edited or co-edited multiple works, including Rude: Contemporary Black Canadian Cultural Criticism (Insomniac, 2000). Walcott is the author of Black Like Who: Writing Black Canada (Insomniac Press, 1997, with a second revised edition in 2003). He is also the author of Queer Returns: Essays on Multiculturalism, Diaspora and Black Studies (Insomniac Press, 2016) and co-author of Black Life: Post-BLM and the Struggle for Freedom (Arbeiter Ring, 2019). In 2021, Walcott published The Long Emancipation: Moving Towards Freedom (Duke University Press) and On Property: Policing, Prisons, and the Call for Abolition (Biblioasis), which was nominated for the Heritage Toronto Book Award, longlisted for the Toronto Book Awards, a Globe and Mail Book of the Year, and listed in CBC Books Best Canadian Nonfiction of 2021.

This event is by RSVP registration only, and registered participants will be sent pre-readings ahead of the event. Sign up at https://duke.is/yuktp
Sponsor

Franklin Humanities Institute (FHI)

Co-Sponsor(s)

African and African American Studies (AAAS); English; From Slavery to Freedom Lab; Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies; Literature