On Race, Class, and Hurricanes: Black Bodies, Imperial Hubris

INDIANAPOLIS - Obioma Nnaemeka, a professor of French, Women's Studies & African-American and African Diaspora Studies in the IU School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI will present a paper linking the construction of Africans during the 19 th European imperial expansionism to the discourse on blacks post-Katrina.

The presentation, sponsored by the IUPUI African-American and African Diaspora Studies Committee and The Millennium Seminar on Black Studies in the School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI, will be from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. November 3, 2005 in Room 508 at Cavanaugh Hall.

According to an abstract of the paper, "in August 2005, a hurricane named Katrina knocked down a façade (levees) to expose the underbelly of an American city (New Orleans) and by extension America itself. This paper is an attempt to understand the contexts of the catastrophic event in New Orleans and join the national and global discussions about social inequalities that erupted in the aftermath of Katrina. By linking the construction of Africans during the 19 th  European imperial expansionism to the discourse on blacks post-Katrina, the paper explores the continuities in the construction of 'race' and their consequences; such as the disconnect between democracy and social justice, between the accumulation of wealth and its distribution.  This study of the intersection of history, race and class hopes to expose the mind-set, inclinations, and ideologies that produced/produce mythologies of the abject black body, examine the mechanisms, agendas, institutions, and discourses that are deployed to legitimize and sustain the mythologies of the black world."

For more information, contact: Professor Edward Curtis, ecurtis4@iupui.edu.