ThoughtGallery.org > Uprising 4/13 | #BlackLivesMatter

Uprising 4/13 | #BlackLivesMatter

In the Jerome Greene Annex

Shanelle Matthews (Activist-in-Residence, New School)

Kendall Thomas (Columbia University)

Deva Woodly (New School)

Moderated by Elias Alcantara (Columbia University) and Bernard E. Harcourt

#BlackLivesMatter, a social movement that is still emerging and young as a historical matter, has already undergone significant change over the last few years. Today, it consists of a range of activism, extending from individual acts of resistance, to local collectives, to national organizations, all self-identifying as part of a broader movement for Black lives, anti-racism, and racial justice. It is a movement marked by self identification. There is no authoritative policing, no institutional judge of who can legitimately claim to be part of the movement or use the hashtag, and perhaps as a result, the edges and boundaries of the movement remain somewhat fluid.

A thread that ties together all of the different facets of the movement for Black lives is the direct challenge to the history of earlier civil rights leadership. In this, as UIC Professor Barbara Ransby underscores in her essay in the New York Times, we can see the strong influence that black feminist and LGBTQ theorists and practitioners have had on many of the activists for Black lives. Join us on November 9, 2017, to critically think about this new form of uprising.

“In politics,” Reinhart Koselleck writes at the end of his essay on the modern concept of revolution, “words and their usage are more important than any other weapon.” Perhaps. Or perhaps not. Perhaps the words, in the end, merely catch up with the things. Regardless, a central question arises: In an age that may be considered post-revolutionary (but that too is a question), how should we understand and theorize collective action and individual political engagement? This seminar seeks to answer that question through a sustained, critical examination of different contemporary forms of political uprisings.

The purpose of this seminar series, then, is to explore various modalities of disobedience, inservitude, revolt, social movement, or other forms of political contestation. Instead of including them all under the name of “revolution”—a term that has become conceptually and historically fraught—we are interested in considering how specific experiences and discourses articulate new forms of uprising or reformulate well-known ones. By focusing on this conceptual, historical and political problematic, we intend to shine a light on experiences and manifestations that take place at the local and at the global level, as well as at the subjective and the collective level. The idea is to articulate how critical political practice is expressed and understood today. Each session will focus on one form of uprising in relation to historical events, from modern revolutionary movements to the Arab Spring and the Dakota Access Pipeline. We will be addressing the questions on the basis of a range of archival and theoretical sources, and other media.

The seminar series will follow the same format as the two previous CCCCT seminar series, namely the seminar series that focused on Michel Foucault’s Collège de France lectures and produced the Foucault 13/13 series during the 2015-2016 academic year, and the seminar series focused on critical readings of Friedrich Nietzsche that produced the Nietzsche 13/13 series during the 2016-2017 academic year. At each session, two or three guests, from different disciplines, will be invited to discuss the readings and present on the themes of the seminar. Each seminar will host specialists from across the disciplines, from Columbia University and from outside campus. It will also frame and interrelate with a Paris Reading Group that will run alongside the seminar.

Primary Readings

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me, New York: Random House, 2015.

Barbara Ransby, “Black Lives Matter Is Democracy in Action,” New York Times, October 21, 2017

Jelani Cobb, Where Is BlackLivesMatter Headed?, New Yorker, March 14, 2016

Additional Readings

James Baldwin, Go Tell It to the Mountain, New York: Everyman, 2016.

Raoul Peck, I am not your Negro, Film, 2016.











When: Thu., Nov. 9, 2017 at 6:15 pm - 8:45 pm
Where: Columbia University
116th St. & Broadway
212-854-1754
Price: Free
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In the Jerome Greene Annex

Shanelle Matthews (Activist-in-Residence, New School)

Kendall Thomas (Columbia University)

Deva Woodly (New School)

Moderated by Elias Alcantara (Columbia University) and Bernard E. Harcourt

#BlackLivesMatter, a social movement that is still emerging and young as a historical matter, has already undergone significant change over the last few years. Today, it consists of a range of activism, extending from individual acts of resistance, to local collectives, to national organizations, all self-identifying as part of a broader movement for Black lives, anti-racism, and racial justice. It is a movement marked by self identification. There is no authoritative policing, no institutional judge of who can legitimately claim to be part of the movement or use the hashtag, and perhaps as a result, the edges and boundaries of the movement remain somewhat fluid.

A thread that ties together all of the different facets of the movement for Black lives is the direct challenge to the history of earlier civil rights leadership. In this, as UIC Professor Barbara Ransby underscores in her essay in the New York Times, we can see the strong influence that black feminist and LGBTQ theorists and practitioners have had on many of the activists for Black lives. Join us on November 9, 2017, to critically think about this new form of uprising.

“In politics,” Reinhart Koselleck writes at the end of his essay on the modern concept of revolution, “words and their usage are more important than any other weapon.” Perhaps. Or perhaps not. Perhaps the words, in the end, merely catch up with the things. Regardless, a central question arises: In an age that may be considered post-revolutionary (but that too is a question), how should we understand and theorize collective action and individual political engagement? This seminar seeks to answer that question through a sustained, critical examination of different contemporary forms of political uprisings.

The purpose of this seminar series, then, is to explore various modalities of disobedience, inservitude, revolt, social movement, or other forms of political contestation. Instead of including them all under the name of “revolution”—a term that has become conceptually and historically fraught—we are interested in considering how specific experiences and discourses articulate new forms of uprising or reformulate well-known ones. By focusing on this conceptual, historical and political problematic, we intend to shine a light on experiences and manifestations that take place at the local and at the global level, as well as at the subjective and the collective level. The idea is to articulate how critical political practice is expressed and understood today. Each session will focus on one form of uprising in relation to historical events, from modern revolutionary movements to the Arab Spring and the Dakota Access Pipeline. We will be addressing the questions on the basis of a range of archival and theoretical sources, and other media.

The seminar series will follow the same format as the two previous CCCCT seminar series, namely the seminar series that focused on Michel Foucault’s Collège de France lectures and produced the Foucault 13/13 series during the 2015-2016 academic year, and the seminar series focused on critical readings of Friedrich Nietzsche that produced the Nietzsche 13/13 series during the 2016-2017 academic year. At each session, two or three guests, from different disciplines, will be invited to discuss the readings and present on the themes of the seminar. Each seminar will host specialists from across the disciplines, from Columbia University and from outside campus. It will also frame and interrelate with a Paris Reading Group that will run alongside the seminar.

Primary Readings

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me, New York: Random House, 2015.

Barbara Ransby, “Black Lives Matter Is Democracy in Action,” New York Times, October 21, 2017

Jelani Cobb, Where Is BlackLivesMatter Headed?, New Yorker, March 14, 2016

Additional Readings

James Baldwin, Go Tell It to the Mountain, New York: Everyman, 2016.

Raoul Peck, I am not your Negro, Film, 2016.

Buy tickets/get more info now