Africana Studies at James Madison University invites you to its first Africana Dialogue Series on the theme is Fear. Conflict. Trauma: Negotiating Spaces, scheduled for October 20, 2017. Highlights of the event include a keynote on the topic “Fear. Conflict. Trauma: Community – The Negotiated Space” to be delivered by Dr. Maghan Keita of Villanova University. Featured speakers are Dr. Maureen Shanahan, Dr. Amadi Azikiwe, and Steven Thomas, a community activist. Panels of scholars, and students, from multidisciplinary perspectives, will explore the realities and complexities of the past, challenging episodes in the contemporary world, and the various ways that individuals, groups, and communities mediate them. There are clearly profound lessons to be drawn from the event. 

Africana Studies also features the lectures of Dr. Jonathan Gray of City University New York. He will be speaking on “Superheroes and Super Athletes: Exceptional Blackness and the Contradictions of Race in the Post-Civil Rights America” in Duke 1013, and “Circa 1985: Narratives of Resistance” in Carrier 301 as part of the Africana Literature and Cultures Workshop holding on October 20, 2017. 

Please review the schedule below and mark your calendar to be at these events.  

Thursday, October 19

6:30 – 7:30 PM • WELCOME RECEPTION • DUKE HALL GALLERY COURT
Faculty, staff, and students are invited to attend.

Friday, October 20 

9:30 – 10:20 AM • SESSION I • DUKE 2037

“Colonial Soldiers in 1916: Trauma and Surveillance Under the Photographic Gaze”
Featured Speaker: Maureen Shanahan, Professor of Art History

10:25 – 11:05 AM • SESSION II • DUKE 2037

Student Panel on Art, Literature, and Trauma

11:40 AM – 12:45 PM • SESSION III • DUKE 2037

“Real and Imagined Fears”
Featured Speaker: Steven Thomas, Restorative Justice Coordinator for the Northeast Neighborhood Association of Harrisonburg

1:50 – 2:40 PM • SESSION IV • DUKE 2037

“Classical String Music in the African Diaspora”
Featured Performer: Amadi Azikiwe, Music Director of the Harlem Symphony Orchestra

2:45 – 4:30 PM • SESSION V • DUKE 2037

International Scholar Panel on “Fear, Conflict, and Trauma in Africa”

3:00 – 4:15 PM • LECTURE • CARRIER 301

“Superheroes and Super Athletes: Exceptional Blackness and the Contradictions of Race in the Post-Civil Rights America”
Speaker: Dr. Jonathan Gray, City University of New York
Sponsored by the Africana Literatures and Cultures Workshop

4:30 – 5:15 PM • WORKSHOP • DUKE 1013

Circa 1985: Narratives of Resistance
Speaker: Dr. Jonathan Gray, City University of New York
Sponsored by the Africana Literatures and Cultures Workshop

5:30 – 6:30 PM • KEYNOTE LECTURE • DUKE HALL GALLERY COURT

“Fear, Conflict, and Trauma – The Negotiated Space”
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Maghan Keita, Director of Africana Studies and 
Professor of History, Villanova University

For questions please contact Dr. Aderonke Adesanya, Africana Studies Coordinator at adesanaa@jmu.edu or africanastudies@jmu.edu.