Please click here to register for Agents of Change: A Symposium in Honor of Marcellus Blount.
The Committee on Equity and Diversity (CED) in Arts & Sciences will celebrate the life and work of Professor Marcellus Blount in Agents of Change: A Symposium in Honor of Marcellus Blount, on Low Library, Rotunda and Faculty Room, Tuesday, March 26, 1:00-4:30 pm. Speakers will include George Aumoithe, Sarah Cole, Zinga Fraser, Farah Jasmine Griffin, Jack Halberstam, Ellie Hisama, Jean Howard, Dennis Mitchell, Robert O’Meally, Rebecca Pawel, Richard Sacks, James Shapiro, Joseph Slaughter, Alan Stewart, Kendall Thomas, and Maya Tolstoy. This afternoon symposium will recognize Professor Blount's research, teaching, mentoring, and activism, and will feature a panel and a roundtable. Lloyd Knight, Principal Dancer of the Martha Graham Dance Company, will perform at the event.
Agents of Change: A Symposium in Honor of Marcellus Blount
Tuesday, March 26, 1:00 to 4:30 pm
Rotunda & Faculty Room, 207 Low Library
1:00-1:15 pm Welcome
Maya Tolstoy (Interim Executive Vice President & Dean of the Faculty, Arts & Sciences)
Ellie M. Hisama (Member, Committee on Equity and Diversity, Arts & Sciences;
Professor of Music & Executive Committee, IRWGS)
1:15 -1:30 pm Solo Dance Performance (Rotunda)
Lloyd Knight, Principal Dancer, Martha Graham Dance Company
1:30-1:45 pm Opening Remarks (Faculty Room)
Alan Stewart (Chair, Department of English & Comparative Literature)
Sarah Cole (Dean of Humanities; Department of English & Comparative Literature)
1:45-3:00 pm Panel (Faculty Room)
“A different kind of politics of liberation”:
Thinking about Marcellus Blount’s Work
Chair: Farah Jasmine Griffin (Chair, African American and African Diaspora Studies Department;
Department of English & Comparative Literature)
George Aumoithe, “Inheriting Marcellus's Library” (Princeton University, Department of History)
Rebecca Pawel, “Notes of a Native New Yorker: James Baldwin, Marcellus Blount, and Shared Identities” Department of English & Comparative Literature)
Kendall Thomas, “Making Things Mean: Notes on Representing Black Men” (Center for the Study of Law and Culture, Law School)
3:00-4:15 pm Roundtable (Faculty Room)
“What it means to be free”:
Marcellus Blount’s Institution-Building Work
Chair: Jean E. Howard (George Delacorte Professor in the Humanities;
Department of English & Comparative Literature)
Zinga Fraser (Shirley Chisholm Project; Africana Studies
& Women’s and Gender Studies Program, Brooklyn College, CUNY)
Jack Halberstam (Department of English & Comparative Literature & IRWGS)
Robert O’Meally (Center for Jazz Studies; Department of English
& Comparative Literature)
Richard Sacks (Department of English & Comparative Literature)
James Shapiro (Department of English & Comparative Literature)
Joseph Slaughter (Department of English & Comparative Literature)
4:15-4:30 pm Closing remarks
Dennis A. Mitchell (Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement)
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Organized by
Committee on Equity and Diversity, Arts & Sciences
Sponsored by
Office of the Executive Vice President and Dean of Faculty, Arts & Sciences
Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies
Department of English and Comparative Literature
Division of the Humanities
Center for Jazz Studies
Society of Fellows/Heyman Center for the Humanities
Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality
Department of Music