When Teaching Race Is Illegal: Stuart Hall and Critical Race Theory in the US Context (CRRE Seminar)

Dr Benjamin P. Davis, Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and Hispanic Studies, Texas A&M University

Dr. Davis' presentation will be followed by a Q&A with participants.

One of Stuart Hall’s contributions, as a teacher and a writer, was to raise questions that the wider British society did not feel comfortable talking about. More specifically, Hall asked British society—especially white British society--to consider more fully how race already informed public life and the identities of people. In this lecture, I analyze how Hall’s example and insights can inform teaching about race in the US context, and specifically in Texas, where there remains an ongoing legal effort to prevent professors from being able to teach and talk about race in our classes. I read “Gramsci’s Relevance for the Study of Race and Ethnicity” and “Teaching Race” together in order to suggest how teaching remains one “terrain” for contesting the state’s efforts to hegemonically control narratives around race in education. I conclude by suggesting that we understand these contestations as part of a wider internationalism and humanism, thus putting Hall in dialogue with Steve Biko and Edward Said.

Biography

Benjamin P. Davis is an Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and Hispanic Studies in the Department of Global Languages & Cultures at Texas A&M University. He is the author of two books, Simone Weil’s Political Philosophy: Field Notes from the Margins and Choose Your Bearing: Édouard Glissant, Human Rights, and Decolonial Ethics. With Kris F. Sealey, he is also the co-editor of Creolizing Critical Theory: New Voices in Caribbean Philosophy. He is currently finishing a book that defends the concept of the human, called for now Another Humanity: Decolonial Ethics from Du Bois to Arendt.

• This event is free and open to the public, staff and students.
• This is a hybrid event. Registration is essential to let us know if you are attending in person or online, to receive the link to TEAMS. 
• Please note, this seminar is not being recorded.

Hosted by the Centre for Research in Race and Education (CRRE)