IRW Distinguished Lecture Series 2020-2021

Knowing Bodies: Science and the Sex/Gender Distinction

Each year, IRW's distinguished lecture series presents a variety of talks showcasing interdisciplinary work on women, gender and sexuality by a variety of eminent speakers. The lecture series revolves around an annual theme that is also shared by our interdisciplinary seminar and undergraduate learning community. In 2020-2021 our annual theme is "Knowing Bodies: Science and the Sex/Gender Distinction."

Thursday, April 29, 2021
“I Thought You Were Somebody Else”: Centering Black Women and Femmes in Racial Justice, Salamishah Tillet

In Richard Wright’s posthumously published short story, “Man of All Work,” he attempted to address the criticism of his troubling representations of African American women, particularly black domestic workers in Native Son, head-on. The story, which appeared in a larger collection entitled “Eight Men,” and was originally written as a radio play, is set in the 1950s and is about an African-American man named Carl Owens, who is unable to find a job, and ends up pretending to be his wife Lucy and successfully securing employment in a white household. While the story depicted the various ways that racism disproportionately impacted African-Americans at the time, through its ambiguous ending, it also risked erasing the specific sexual violence to which Carl’s wife, Lucy, was actually privy. Taking Wright’s story as its starting point, this talk will examine the challenges of subsuming “gender” in service of racial allegory, and the ongoing violence and erasure that Black women and Femmes continue to face, in social justice movements, as a result of the continued association of Blackness with masculinity today.

All events at 4.30 p.m. Free and open to the public. Online for 2020-2021.