REPRESENTATIONS OF RACE AND IDENTITY IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN CULTURE
Responding to ongoing public discussions about race and identity, this panel is an interactive dialogue about how race and identity are represented, articulated, constituted, and enacted in various ways in American culture, from political discussions to popular culture, in the news media and among citizens in everyday conversation.
Richard West’s NCA Presidential Initiative
A Public Program of the National Communication Association
Held at Emerson College
Important questions to be addressed include:
* How do we talk about race and identity?
* What are the consequences and effects of how we communicate about race and identity?
* How do our interactions about race and identity include and embrace, exclude and oppress?
* How can we clarify, through conversation, our public understanding and enactment of race and identity in the American context?
Thursday, March 20, 2014
7 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
BILL BORDY THEATER
216 Tremont Street, First Floor
Emerson College, Boston, MA 02116
MODERATOR
HARVEY YOUNG, Department of Theatre at Northwestern University
An award-winning author and an internationally recognized authority on African-American culture and performing arts, Professor Young is the author of Embodying Black Experience and Theatre & Race, and co-editor of Performance in the Borderlands and Reimagining A Raisin in the Sun: Four New Plays.
PANELISTS
ANNE DEMO, Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies at Syracuse University
Professor Demo’s work explores the relationships between visual/digital rhetoric and U.S. cultural politics. She is the co-editor of Rhetoric, Remembrance, and Visual Form: Sighting Memory.
KIMBERLY McLARIN, Department of Writing, Literature & Publishing at Emerson College
Appearing regularly on the Emmy Award-winning show Basic Black, Boston’s long-running television program devoted to African-American themes, Professor McLarin is the author of four books, including Jump at the Sun, which was chosen as a 2007 Fiction Honor Book by both the Massachusetts Center for the Book and the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Her new memoir, Divorce Dog, was published last year.
TOM NAKAYAMA, Department of Communication Studies at Northeastern University
Professor Nakayama studies intercultural communication and whiteness. A former editor of the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, he is a co-editor of the Handbook of Critical Intercultural Communication.
JEFF SCHAFFER, Executive Producer, The League
Mr. Schaffer is a producer, writer, and director for television and film. His writing credits include episodes of the television programs Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm and the films Bruno and The Dictator. He is also the creator, writer, and director of The League and writer and director of the 2004 film EuroTrip.
ANGHARAD N. VALDIVIA, Media and Cinema Studies at the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
In examinations of media studies and contemporary mainstream popular culture, Professor Valdivia combines the areas of gender studies with ethnic studies and transnational studies. She is the managing editor of the International Encyclopedia of Media Studies.
Center for Intercultural Dialogue 