Inaugural season of English Department Colloquium Series begins Sept. 22
The English Department announces the inaugural season of a new colloquium series. All presentations in the series will be held from 3:30 to 5 p.m. on one Friday a month in the O’Shaughnessy Room, Room 108, O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library Center.
Each session will offer a lecture given by an English Department faculty member or a discussion panel of English majors and graduate students sharing their research, followed by a question-and-answer session. All UST faculty, students and staff are welcome. Light refreshments will be served.
The first lecture in the series is titled “Black Pimp, White Ho: Racial Anxiety, Sexual Desire and the Politics of Representation.” This lecture will be given by Dr. Todd Lawrence on Friday, Sept. 22.
Lawrence describes his lecture
“As common as representations of the black pimp have become during recent years in popular culture (ex., "Hustle and Flow," Three-six Mafia at the Oscars, any Little John song),” says Lawrence , “this traditional figure of black folklore has not lost its ability to shock and disturb. The black pimp figure’s importance has been highly contested in recent scholarship, but whether it is taken as a symbol of resistance or one of exploitation and self-destruction, the black pimp figure can be useful in what it reveals about the dominant society’s difficult relationship with black males.
“With a popular coffee-table glossy from the early 70s as its central text of analysis (Gentleman of Leisure: A Year in the Life of a Pimp), this PowerPoint presentation will explore the visual and quasi-anthropological representations of a black pimp and his white “ladies” and examine the sexual and racial politics of such representations.”
Future colloquium events for the 2006-2007 academic year are listed below:
Fall semester 2006
- Oct. 20 – Student panel, “The Joys and Challenges of Literary Research,” Cortney Dirks, Brynn Bauer, Gary Zaugg and Erin Huebner Gloege
- Nov. 17 – Tom Redshaw, “Researching Liam Miller’s Dolmen Press”
Spring semester 2007
- Feb. 16: Faculty-student panel, “Generating Enthusiasm in the English Program,” Brenda Powell, Jacob Paro, Brian Timmerman and Lissi Danielson
- March 9 – Erica Frisicaro, “Square Pegs, Round Whole? New Literacies and the Structure of English Studies”
- April 20: Joan Piorkowski, “Drama of the Ordinary: Writing about the Sachsenhausen SS”
Questions about the colloquium series can be directed to the English Department, (651) 962-5600.
