What does it mean to talk today about a black radical tradition? Arguably, the idea of a radical tradition has been an important part of modern black intellectual life, shaping the constructions and reconstructions of an ethical-political connection across the rupturing history of black dispossession, displacement, and disenfranchisement. Part of the attractiveness, no doubt, of the idea of a black radical tradition is the way in which it offers an idiom of belonging, a vantage from which to narrate a shared past, and a perspective from which to imagine a common future. In recent years, however, in a growing number of books, we have seen the idea employed with more coherent force, perhaps more systematic intent.
This conference seeks to offer a critical platform on which to clarify the conceptual and political range of this idea of a black radical tradition. Needless to say, there is no interest in producing some kind of unifying coherence around this idea. We are, however, interested in critically inquiring into its past uses and its current possibilities.
Participants:
Anthony Bogues, Brown University
Hazel Carby, Yale University
Brent Hayes Edwards, Columbia University
Kaiama Glover, Barnard College
Farrah Griffin, Columbia University
Robert Hill, UCLA
Richard Iton, Northwestern University
Fred Moten, Duke University
Frances Negr�n-Muntaner, Columbia University
David Scott, Columbia University
Nikhil Pal Singh, New York University
Faith Smith, Brandeis University
New York City, NY; NYC