Wednesday, April 25, 5:30pm
College of Liberal Arts, room 4315
Dr. Paul Youngquist, Professor in the Department of English at University of Colorado Boulder
What makes it possible to see what you see? When seeing Black men in America, especially at times of strife, why do so many people perceive a threat of violence? “Savage Sight” explores the visual history that configures such seeing, the lineage of images that makes it seem inevitable, natural, true. Tracking them back to colonial times when plantations set the terms for race relations, Dr. Youngquist’s paper shows how African rebels against white authority come to be represented visually as savage insurgents against social stability. Jamaica’s Maroons provide especially virulent subjects for such images as independent Africans nevertheless serving the state as its black defenders. Their rebellion in 1795 inspires a visual record of black resistance that incites a long history of visual imagery that associates it with savagery. Such images continue to circulate today in media representations of black resistance in response to police brutality.
For more information, contact Dr. Frances Botkin in the Department of English at fbotkin@towson.edu.
