The 20th/21st Century Workshop is pleased to present
“Making Home & Making Citizenship—from Scratch”
a lecture by
Koritha Mitchell
Associate Professor of English, The Ohio State University
2016-2017 Residential Fellow, Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study
Monday, April 3rd at 4:30pm
5733 S University Ave, Community Room
Light refreshments will be served
Abstract: Even when African Americans embody everything the nation claims to respect, they can’t count on being treated like citizens. Black soldiers of WWI and WWII fought valiantly only to return to be lynched in their uniforms. The nation’s first non-white president was a loving husband and father in addition to being well educated and even tempered, but he was disrespected in unprecedented ways. Though their success will not likely bring them the safety and respectability it should, African Americans (both in life and in literature) seem to cling to all that purportedly makes one an ideal citizen, including the heteronormative nuclear family and its self-sustaining household. Drawn from Mitchell’s book-in-progress, this presentation asks, what does this pattern of investing against the odds reveal about African American culture?
Should you need assistance to attend, contact Nell Pach (npach@uchicago.edu) or Jean-Thomas Tremblay (tremblay@uchicago.edu)
