Presented in partnership with UW Communication, UW Race & Equity Initiative, UW Department of Philosophy, and Seattle University Office of Diversity & Inclusion
Join the Northwest African American Museum for an evening with Dr. Cornel West discussing "Critical Thinking and the Cultivation of Your True Self".
Nationally-renowned public intellectual and award-winning author Dr. Cornel West, professor of Harvard University, will join Dr. Ralina Joseph, NAAM’s scholar-in-residence, for a riveting discussion as part of the "It Takes a Village" series.
This event will also feature performances from award winning multi-instrumentalist, composer, community activist, social entrepreneur, and educator, Ben Hunter.
About the “IT TAKES A VILLAGE” SERIES:
NAAM facilitates community-rooted conversations about relevant issues and discussions that inspire unity and action. This series highlights voices and ideas from across the Black diaspora on important topics that inform the individual and collective Black experience, including artists, health professionals, musicians, authors, and scholars.
Keynote Speaker:
Dr. Cornel West
Cornel West is a prominent and provocative democratic intellectual. He is Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University and holds the title of Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. He has also taught at Union Theological Seminary, Yale, Harvard, and the University of Paris. Cornel West graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard in three years and obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy at Princeton.
He has written 20 books and has edited 13. Though he is best known for his classics Race Matters and Democracy Matters, and his memoir, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud, his most recent book Black Prophetic Fire has received critical acclaim. Dr. West is a frequent guest on the Bill Maher Show, Colbert Report, CNN, C-Span and Democracy Now.
He made his film debut in the Matrix – and was the commentator (with Ken Wilbur) on the official trilogy released in 2004. He also has appeared in over 25 documentaries and films including Examined Life, Call & Response, Sidewalk and Stand.
Last, he has made three spoken word albums including Never Forget, collaborating with Prince, Jill Scott, Andre 3000, Talib Kweli, KRS-One and the late Gerald Levert. His spoken word interludes were featured on Terence Blanchard’s Choices (which won the Grand Prix in France for the best Jazz Album of the year of 2009), The Cornel West Theory’s Second Rome, Raheem DeVaughn’s Grammy-nominated Love & War: Masterpeace, and most recently on Bootsy Collins’ The Funk Capital of the World. In short, Cornel West has a passion to communicate to a vast variety of publics in order to keep alive the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. – a legacy of telling the truth and bearing witness to love and justice.
Dr. Ralina Joseph, ModeratorCenter for Communication, Difference, and Equity
Dr. Ralina L. Joseph, Professor of Communication and adjunct Professor of American Ethnic Studies and Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, received her Ph.D. and M.A. in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, San Diego and B. A. in American Civilization from Brown University.
Dr. Joseph is the founding and acting director of the University of Washington’s Center for Communication, Difference, and Equity. She is a scholar, teacher, and facilitator of race and communication.
Her first book, Transcending Blackness: From the New Millennium Mulatta to the Exceptional Multiracial (Duke University Press, 2012), critiques anti-Black racism in mixed-race African American representations in the decade leading up to Obama’s 2008 election.
Her second book, Postracial Resistance: Black Women, Media Culture, and the Uses of Strategic Ambiguity (NYU Press, 2018), is the 2019 winner of the International Communication Association’s Outstanding Book of the Year Award. Postracial Resistance examines how African American women negotiate the minefield of “postracial racism.” Listen to an interview HERE.
Dr. Joseph is currently writing two new books. The first, Generation Mixed Goes to School: Fostering Mixed-Race Spaces in School Communities, (with Dr. Allison Briscoe-Smith, under contract with Teachers College Press), centers the perspectives of multiracial children in the creation of anti-racist schools. The second, Interrupting Privilege: The Promises and Perils of Talking Race and Fighting Racism, provides both the theoretical framework and a nuts-and-bolts guidebook to fighting back against everyday, interpersonal inequalities. You can read about Interrupting Privilege HERE.
In addition, her work has appeared in The International Journal of Communication; Critical Studies in Media Communication; Communication Studies; The Black Scholar; and Communication, Culture, and Critique, and she has chapters in Race/Gender/Media: Considering Diversity Across Audiences, Content, and Producers; Blackberries and Redbones: Critical Articulations of Black Hair/Body Politics in Africana Communities; and Claiming a Seat at the Table: Feminism, Underserved Women of Color, Voice, and Resistance.
She is a recipient of awards and fellowships from ACLS/Mellon, the Ford Foundation, Woodrow Wilson/Mellon, the University of California, the American Association of University Women and the Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities at the University of Washington. At the UW she has received a Faculty Mentorship award from the Ethnic Cultural Center, an Undergraduate Research Mentor award, and a Woman of Courage Award from the Women’s Center.
For more information, see ralinajoseph.net.