Conference: Race and Narrative Theory
Event Date: Friday, April 11, 2008, 9:30 am - 4:45 pm
Participants: Ulka Anjaria, Jennifer Brody, Vilashini Cooppan, Dorothy Hale, Carla Kaplan, Ernesto Martínez, Paula Moya, James Phelan, Ramon Salidvar, and Kenneth Warren.
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Description
How are the most productive models of narrative form—so often developed in relation to a fairly limited canon of literary works—transformed in relation to texts which revolve around complex representations, and articulations, of race? And how can race studies use, challenge, develop and intersect with models of narrative and theories of form? Participants will present short papers which seek to distill one or two specific examples where race and form meet: particularly rich instances within a specific narrative where a formal issue, problem, device or possibility is crystallized in relation to race.Readings
Readings will be made available as handouts during conference events. Panelists can also access them on this page, where they are password-protected.If you plan to attend the conference and would like to download the readings beforehand, please email Kenny Ligda or Miruna Stanica and they will provide you with password information.
Schedule
9:00 am – 9:30 am Breakfast
9:30 am - 11:15 am Vilashini Cooppan, Jennifer Brody, Ulka Anjaria
Cooppan: Selections from Aphra Behn's Oroonoko, The Life of Olaudah Equiano, and Cambridge by Caryl Phillips (click here for pdf)
Brody Readings: Harryette Mullen's poem "Elliptical" from Sleeping with the Dictionary (click here for pdf)
Script: Rough transcription from an improvisational narrative performance by Bill T. Jones (click here for pdf)
Video: A clip from a Bill T. Jones performance (click here to view)
Brody Talk: click here for pdf
Anjaria Reading: Selections from Ken Saro-Wiwa's Sozaboy (click here for pdf)
11:15 am – 11:45 am Coffee Break
11:45 am – 1:30 pm Ernesto Martínez, Carla Kaplan, Dorothy Hale
Martínez Reading: Randall Kenan's short story "The Foundations of the Earth," from Let the Dead Bury their Dead (click here for pdf)
Kaplan Reading: Scene three from Annie Nathan Meyer's play Black Souls (click here for pdf)
Hale Reading. Selections from Zadie Smith's On Beauty, Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, and Elaine Scarry's On Beauty and Being Just (click here for pdf)
1:30 pm – 2:45 pm Lunch
2:45 pm – 4:45 pm Kenneth Warren, Ramon Saldívar, James Phelan, Paula Moya
Warren Reading: pp. 252-262 from Claude McKay's Home to Harlem (click here for pdf)
Saldívar Reading: Prologue and First Chapter from Salvador Plascencia's The People of Paper (click here for pdf)
Phelan Reading: Excerpts from Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (click here for pdf)
Moya Reading: Helena Maria Viramontes' short story "The Moths" (click here for pdf)