Purdue Northwest faculty members offer ‘Race, Racism, Anti-racism’ lecture-discussion series

August 7, 2020

Faculty members from Purdue University Northwest will offer a series of interdisciplinary lectures and discussions during the academic year of 2020-2021, about race relations and racism in America.

Titled “Race, Racism, Anti-racism,” the fall 2020 portion of this series offers four lecture-discussion sessions led by PNW faculty members from the College of Humanities, Education, and Social Sciences. All sessions will be moderated by Karen Bishop Morris, associate professor of English.

Deepa Majumdar, professor of Philosophy, organized the faculty-driven series because she believes faculty members have an important contribution to make to the current dialogue about race.

“Activists are risking their lives for the sake of social justice,” she said. “I felt strongly that given this extraordinary historical moment, we, the faculty, ought to be pooling our expertise and producing educational presentations.”

Lee Artz, professor of Communication at PNW, cited the worldwide reaction to the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in May as providing the motivation for holding local discussions about race and racism.

“Citizens, black and white, responded with outrage in the largest protests since the civil rights movement,” Artz said. “PNW faculty are here. We teach. We educate. We hope to increase recognition of racism and improve understanding of racial inequality and hopefully find effective anti-racism activities and actions.”

All events are free, virtual and open to the public. Funding is provided by PNW’s Office of Academic Affairs and the Office of the Chancellor.

Guests are welcome to join via Zoom or Facebook live. Registration is strongly encouraged. Full details can be found on the event webpage at pnw.edu/anti-racism.

The events are as follows:

The Return of Black-led Grassroots Politics with Glen Ford, executive editor: Black Agenda Report, 12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m. Thursday, September 3

Race and Wrongful Convictions with Nicky Jackson, professor of Criminal Justice and Roosevelt Glenn, exoneree, 12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m. Tuesday, October 6

Media Framing and the Politics of Racism with Lee Artz, professor of Communication, 12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m. Tuesday, November 3

How to talk about race in the 21st Century with Kim Scipes, professor of Sociology, 2 p.m. – 3:15 p.m. Monday, November 30