Prof Premilla Nadasen announced as Fulbright Visiting Professor
Premilla Nadasen, Professor of History at Barnard College, has been announced as this year’s Fulbright-Oxford-Pembroke Visiting Professor in Politics and International Relations.
Prof Nadasen researches race, gender, social policy, and organising in US history. Her most recent book, Household Workers Unite: The Untold Story of African American Women who Built a Movement, focuses on activism among African American domestic workers in the 1960s and 1970s. Currently, she is writing a biography of South African singer and activist Miriam Makeba and collaborating on the We Dream in Black Project. In addition, she serves on the advisory committee of the New York Historical Society's Center for Women's History and is President of the National Women's Studies Association. Outside of academia, Prof Nadasen has been involved in social justice work for over 30 years, campaigning on a diverse range of issues from workers’ rights to antiapartheid.
While at Oxford, Prof Nadasen will organise a series of seminars at Pembroke College on Radical Histories of Anti-Racism Activism and Organizing, including:
Writing Black Britain a Reflection: The Case of the Anti-Apartheid Movement and Black Activism
Dr Elizabeth Williams (Goldsmiths)
17:00 onwards, Tuesday 14 May
Mary Eccles Room, Pembroke College
- Based at Goldsmiths University of London, Elizabeth is a historian of Modern British and South African History and the history of the Black Diaspora. Since successfully acquiring a PhD in History from the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at Birkbeck, University of London, Dr. Williams has written and published peer-reviewed articles, book chapters and published the single-authored book, The Politics of Race in Britain and South Africa: Black British Solidarity and the Anti-Apartheid Struggle (IB Tauris pbk 2017). Among various projects she is currently editing a book on Black British intellectual engagement with the legacy of Nelson Mandela. Dr. Williams has guest lectured in the UK and internationally such as the national University of Malta, the Universities of Cape Town, Witswatersrand, Johannesburg, Sol Plaatje University, Seth Mokitimi Methodist Seminary, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and more.
Education in Exile: Palestinians Schooling, 1948–1967
Dr Mezna Qato (University of Cambridge)
17:00 onwards, Tuesday 21 May
Mary Eccles Room, Pembroke College
- Mezna Qato is Junior Research Fellow in History at King's College, Cambridge. She is completing a book on the history of education for Palestinians in the aftermath of the 1948 war. Her work revolves around three themes: social histories of Palestinian and Arab exile, the politics and practice of archives, and comparative settler colonialism. Her next project is a history of Palestinians in Haiti. She is a founding committee member of the Librarians and Archivists with Palestine, an editorial board member of the Middle East Research and Information Project, and co-author of An Arab Left Reader (forthcoming). Her most recent artwork, a scorebook on life in exile, was recently in exhibition at the 16th Venice Biennale.
Black British Feminist Organising: Politics, Practice and Influence in a New Era
Chardine Taylor-Stone (Black Girl’s Picnic, Stop Rainbow Racism)
17:00 onwards, Tuesday 28 May
Harold Lee Room, Pembroke College
- Chardine Taylor-Stone is an award-winning cultural producer and feminist activist. She is the founder of Black Girls Picnic, a global movement in collective self care for black women and girls, and Stop Rainbow Racism. In 2015 she was featured in The Voice newspaper as one of the 'Women Who Rocked the World', in Diva Magazine’s LGBT Power List 2016, Buzzfeed’s ‘The Most Inspiring British LGBT People Of 2016‘ and the 'Pride Power List 2017'. In 2017 she was awarded the British LGBTQ award for Contribution to LGBTQ life. As a writer, educator and commentator, Chardine uses music, art and fashion history to instigate socio-political analysis. She often lectures and facilitates workshops on topics such as Black / Working Class feminism, Black Queer identities, Afrofuturism and music subculture histories. She also bangs the drums in Black feminist punk band Big Joanie, whose album Sistah’s was released in 2018 to critical acclaim.
The Black Revolution: The Urgent Need for Radical Politics
Dr Kehinde Andrews (Birmingham City University)
17:00 onwards, Tuesday 4 June
Harold Lee Room, Pembroke College
- Kehinde Andrews is a Professor of Black Studies at Birmingham City University’s School of Social Sciences. Andrews is currently engaged in a project examining the role of Black radicalism in contemporary organising against racial oppression. At Birmingham, he has led the development of the Black Studies degree and is director of the Centre for Critical Social Research; founder of the Harambee Organisation of Black Unity; and co-chair of the Black Studies Association. He is interested in in supervising postgraduate research in the areas of race, ethnicity and racism; Black Studies and how communities overcome inequality. His most recent book is Back to Black: Retelling Black Radicalism for the 21st Century (2018).
Reproduction in the Afterlife of US Slavery
Professor Dána-Ain Davis (CUNY)
17:00 onwards, Tuesday 11 June
Harold Lee Room, Pembroke College
- Dána-Ain Davis is Professor of Urban Studies and Anthropology and director of the Center for the Study of Women and Society at the Graduate Center in New York. Davis’ work covers two broad domains: Black feminist ethnography and the dynamics of race and racism. With regard to the former, Davis has co-edited or co-authored two books on feminist ethnography with Christa Craven, reasserting the importance of feminist ethnographic production as a fundamental anthropological intervention. The most recent being Feminist Ethnography: Thinking Through Methodologies, Challenges and Possibilities (2016). Davis also examines the ways race and racism animate neoliberalism and reproduction. This foci has resulted in one co-edited volume with Shaka McGlotten, Black Genders and Sexualities (2013) and two single-authored books: Battered Black Women and Welfare Reform: Between a Rock and Hard Place (2006) and the recently published Reproductive Injustice: Racism, Pregnancy, and Premature Birth (2019).
Senator J. William Fulbright studied at Pembroke College as a Rhodes Scholar, and the Fulbright Commission was established in 1948 to foster greater cultural understanding and scholarship between the US and UK. The Fulbright Visiting Professorship is one of the programme's most prestigious awards and aims to reflect and extend Senator Fulbright's political and intellectual legacy.
