The following is a listing of upcoming events sponsored or co-sponsored by IRADAC.
“Angels of Mercy: White Women and the History of New York’s Colored Orphan Asylum”
Dr. William Seraile
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
The Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue, Room 9207
Free and open to the public
(212) 817-2076, iradac@gc.cuny.edu
Dr. William Seraile will speak about his book, which uncovers the history of the colored orphan asylum. It was founded in New York City in 1836 as the nation's first orphanage for African American children, where more than 15,000 children were raised. It is a remarkable institution that is still in the forefront of aiding children. Although no longer an orphanage, in its current incarnation as Harlem-Dowling West Side Center for children and Family Services it maintains the principles of the women who organized it nearly 200 years ago.
IRADAC presents the Africana Studies Dissertation Discussions Fall 2012 -Spring 2013
As part of IRADAC's commitment, to create an environment which elevates the academic experience of students at the Graduate Center, members of the Africana Studies Group are invited to lecture to an audience, consisting primarily of their peers, on dissertation/research topics. These lectures are designed to facilitate intellectual exchange between graduate students. The general configuration of these events will be a lecture followed by discussions, comments and question & answer. All dates are on Fridays. The event time is 12:00pm - 2:00pm. Open to the public and a light lunch will be served.
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Friday, April 26, 2013
"Narratives of Blackness from Below? Articulations of Race, Black Consciousness, and Feminism Among Afro-Caribbean Service Workers in New York City"
Christine Pinnock, Ph.D. Program in Anthropology
Room 8301, The Graduate Center
The phrase “from below” connotes an inherent positioning of subjectivity and resistance of dominated populations trying to challenge their subjectivized status. The oral histories of female Afro-Caribbean service workers living and working in New York uncover varying (non)oppositional relationships with race, blackness, and feminism that are also not grounded in the historical, social, and political contextualization of these constructs by African-Americans born here. The female Afro-Caribbean participants in my research reveal that their upbringing in predominantly African-descendent Caribbean countries informs their perceptions on the role blackness plays in individual and collective conceptualizations of identity. Moreover, the expression of feminist principles by Afro-Caribbean women also reveal that their views are not grounded in an attempt to claim space in historically defined feminist spaces of exclusion. These Afro-Caribbean women have cultivated ideas of feminism based on their positions as black women in multiple spaces living in the Caribbean, the United States, and their location in the African Diaspora. Exploring the entanglements of interdisciplinarity among Afro-Caribbean women working as domestics, healthcare, food service and retail workers demonstrates that the discourses surrounding race, blackness, and gender are more intricate when Afro-Caribbean women living and working in New York participate in these dialogues. This paper asks what are the limitations of positioning female Afro-Caribbean service workers solely from below, particularly when their histories and present realities disclose multifaceted engagements from the outside, above, inside and below? More importantly what do their oral histories reveal about their vision for the future?
TBA
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For further information regarding IRADAC events contact:
Jerry Watts, Director
Zee Dempster, Assistant Director
Telephone: (212) 817-2076
Email: IRADAC@gc.cuny.edu
IRADAC -The Graduate Center,
365 Fifth Avenue, 7114, New York, NY 10016-4309
