A SYMPOSIUM ON
THE WORK OF RICHARD ITON:
FEELING THE BLACK FANTASTIC
FRIDAY, MAY 16, 2014
Hilton Orrington, Heritage Ballroom, 2nd Floor
2:00PM • OPENING CEREMONIES & REMARKS
Master of Ceremonies:
Sherwin K. Bryant, Director, CAAH
Dwight A. McBride, Dean of TGS
Sarah Mangelsdorf, Dean of WCAS
Martha Biondi, Chair AFAM
MUSICAL INTERLUDE
Zinga Fraser • “Ella’s Song”, “Everything Must
Change”
2:30PM • OPENING ROUNDTABLE
Cathy Cohen
Fred Harris
Mark Anthony Neal
Valerie Smith
Harvey Neptune
Moderator: Alex Weheliye
4:00PM • REFRESHMENTS
4:30PM • BLACK LEFTISM
Minkah Makalani • “The Politically Unimaginable
and the Black Left: De/Coloniality and Black
Radical Thought After Richard Iton’s In Search of
the Black Fantastic”
Donna Murch • “Living for the City: Black
California, Black Consciousness, and State
Repression in the Postwar US”
David Austin • “The Road to Revolution: Iton’s
Routes and the Making of the Black Fantastic”
Moderator: Damon Sajnani
6:30PM • CRITICAL INTERLUDE
Pauline Ekholt, Writer/Performer • “How to be a
Minority for White People”
7:00PM • RECEPTION
SATURDAY, MAY 17, 2014
Hilton Orrington, Conference Room, 9th Floor
9:00AM-11:00AM • RACE, LAW AND PUBLIC POLICY
Debra Thompson • “Politics Without Guarantees”
Lester Spence • “Off to Battle: Reflections on Politics and the
Political in Black Popular Culture”
Juliet Hooker • “Affirmative Action and the Paradoxes of
Contemporary Black Politics”
Moderator: Zinga Fraser
11:30AM-12:30PM • LUNCH • MEMORIAL MOMENT
1:00PM-3:00PM • BLACK POPULAR CULTURE
Fred Moten • “Air Shaft/Rent Party”
Margo Crawford • “Ghetto Fabulous Meets Neo-Natural Black:
Uncovering the Black Fantastic of Black Body Politics”
Shana L. Redmond • “Swimming Pools: The Quiet Life of
Nickerson Gardens”
Moderator: Christine Goding
3:00PM • REFRESHMENTS
3:30PM-5:00PM • INTERSECTIONALITY AND COLONIALITY
Katherine McKittrick • “Fantastic/Still/Life: On Richard Iton (A
Working Paper)”
Rinaldo Walcott • “Funk: A Note on the Black Human”
Aaron Kamugisha • “‘That area of experience that we term the new
World’: Sylvia Wynter, Richard Iton, and Coloniality”
Michelle A. Stephens • “Feeling Black: Race, Sexuality, Affects of
Difference and the Trope of the Skin”
Moderator: Assata Kokayi
5:00PM-6:00PM • CONCLUDING DIALOGUE
Sherwin K. Bryant and Barnor Hesse • “Dread Beat an’ Blood:
Archiving the Blues in Black Fantastic Forms”
Moderator: Jean-Pierre Brutus