Each spring, the Philosophy Department is proud to host Inspiring TriVia: The Sarah L. Hoagland Speaker Series. As professor emerita of Northeastern Illinois University, Dr. Hoagland generously endowed this series to foster philosophical discussion at the intersections of race, class, and gender. Hence the title: Inspire (to breathe life into), and TriVia (the goddess of crossroads). We keep these goals in mind when selecting speakers.
A heartfelt thank you to Dr. Sarah L. Hoagland for making it all possible.
Spring 2022
"Assuming a World: A Phenomenology of Racism"
A Lecture by Dr. Ainsley LeSure
March 24, 2022
3-4:40 p.m.
Alumni Hall
Dr. Aisley LeSure is an Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at Brown University. In this talk, she presents an alternative to the traditional binary between psychological and structural accounts of racism. Drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt, Frantz Fanon and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, she asks what sustains the persistence of reality-violating racial common sense, and draws attention to complex and intricate interplays between the symbolic and the material, the individual and the collective, the social and political. How can cultivation of democratic culture and of political institutions foster redeployments of these intricate relationships and counteract racism?
Please contact Sophia Mihic at s-mihic@neiu.edu with any questions.
Past Lectures
2021
Kris Sealey, Fairfield University, "When Heads Bang Together: Creolizing and Indigenous Identities in the Americas."
2020
Brian Burkhart, University of Oklahoma, "Indigenous Epistemic Sovereignty through the Land."
2019
Saba Fatima, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE), "#MeToo in Muslim America."
2018
José Medina, Northwestern University, "Racial Violence and Epistemic Activism."
2017
Falguni Sheth, Emory University, "Race, Vulnerability and Violence."
2016
Mariana Ortega, John Caroll University, "In-Between Selves: World Traveling and Resistance."
2015
Jacqueline Scott, Loyola University Chicago, "'Truth-tellers Are Not Always Palatable. There is a Preference for Candy Bars:' The Benefits of Racialized and Gendered Discomfort."
2014
Charles Mills, Northwestern University, "Critical Philosophy of Race: The Challenge of Intersectionality."
