Organizing Team:
Maria De Simone (Music and Theater Arts, MIT)
Erica Kanesaka (English Department, Emory University)
Bernabe Mendoza (Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Dartmouth College)
Allison Puglisi (Department of History, Vassar College)
“Color Crossings” considered color’s metaphorical, linguistic, philosophical, historical, perceptual and practical resonances at the crossroads of critical race theory and color theory. In drawing together these distinct but overlapping discourses, we asked how global histories of race, gender, sex and class are connected to structures of knowledge and power that are ordered by color. To begin to answer these questions, we turned to the work of artists, writers and other creators of color and explored how their art engages color’s aesthetic and affective affordances. We saw color as a transgressive means of expression when employed by people of color, one with the potential to challenge the fixity of racial hierarchies and subvert hegemonic structures.
Invited speakers: Kareem Khubchandani (keynote, Tufts University), Vanatta Ford (Williams College), Tao Leigh Goffe (Columbia University), Tina Post (University of Chicago), and Anna Storti (Duke University).