Herman S. Gray, Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, will give a public lecture on October 18, 2013, “On Race, Representation, and Resonance,” in Becker Auditorium, Room 101, at 4:00 pm. His lecture engages with the way scholars of television and race often take representation as the site of subject/ion and visibility as the object of cultural politics. Gray asks if scholars have reached the limit of this foundational formulation and the assumptions on which it rests. In so doing, he argues for the need to construct different conceptions, ones that nudge approaches to television and television studies more generally, where race is concerned from signification and representation to resonance and experience.

Gray’s visit stems from the 2012 Cmiel Research Semester, “The Dis-integration of Black America?: Post-civil Rights African American Culture.” Directed by Tim Havens (Communication Studies and African American Studies, CLAS), the Cmiel Semester included Deborah Whaley (American Studies and African American Studies, CLAS), Lena Hill (English and African American Studies, CLAS), Michael Hill (English and African American Studies, CLAS), and Andre Brock (previously of POROI and Library and Information Sciences, Graduate College). Through individual scholarship and group conversation, the Cmiel Semester explored the significance of post-civil rights African American culture, both within and beyond the United States.

In addition to the public lecture, Gray will join Cmiel participants and members of the Comparative Ethnic Studies working group, which is directed by Whaley, for a brown bag lunch discussion and visit Venise Berry’s (African American Studies and Journalism & Mass Communication, CLAS) class on African Americans and the Media.  

~Deborah Whaley, American Studies and African American Studies