This event considers the carceral logics and infrastructures of New York City and honors the 60th anniversary of James Baldwin’s blistering Nation essay “A Report From Occupied Territory,” which elucidated the political conditions for Black residents of Harlem following the 1964 killing of a 15 year-old Black teenager by an off-duty white policeman. This symposium examines the long 1970s as a period of contingency and a time of dramatic contestation about the yet-uncertain future of punishment in America, a future that was tethered to major transformations in culture, political economy, and gender, race, and sexual politics.
This event is in person only.
Presented by the Institute for the Study of Sexuality and Gender and the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy. Cosponsored by the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, The Division of Humanities in the Arts and Sciences, The Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities, and The Radio in the Orchard Initiative at Columbia University.
PROGRAM
10-10:30am: Opening Remarks
Sarah Haley (CU History + ISSG) and Jack Halberstam (CU English + ISSG)
10:30-12:00pm: Long History #1: Political Geographies of Violence and Rebellion
Orisanmi Burton (CUNY Grad Center) and Christina Hanhardt (University of Maryland). Moderator: Shana Redmond (CU English + CSER)
12-1:30pm: Making Archives in Harlem and The Bronx: Lunchtime Discussion with Natasha Lightfoot (CU History) and Manan Ahmed (CU History + CSER).
1:30-3:00pm: Long History #2: Living, Making, Dwelling in The Bronx, 1974-1984
Bench Ansfield (Temple University), LaShawn Harris (Michigan State University), Peter L’Official (Bard)
Moderator: Kimberly Phillips-Fein (CU, History)
3:30-5:00pm: Long History #3: The New York Commune, 2052-2072.
M.E. O’Brien (independent scholar) and Eman Abdelhadi (University of Chicago), Reading and Discussion.
Moderator: Jack Halberstam (CU, ISSG + English)
