Erin Thompson: Smashing Monuments

Erin L. Thompson is a professor of art crime at the City University of New York. Professor Erin Thompson discusses her book, "Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of America's Public Monuments." Prof. Thompson explains the role of Confederate monuments, what they symbolize, and to whom their message is aimed. The design of the "parade stance" figure's rise to monument dominance provides insight into the submissive posture of white defender was intentional. Thompson…

Carole Emberton: Violence, Reconstruction, and Redemption

Carole Emberton, Associate Professor of History at University at Buffalo, discusses her book Beyond Redemption: Race, Violence, and the American South After the Civil War. Contrasting Freedmen and Ex-Enslavers, Reconstruction and Redemption, and white and black violence, Professor Emberton explores how the Post-Civil War South struggled to reform itself. The role of black and white veterans, election violence, and the rise of paramilitary groups all converged to create a turbulent and dangerous…

Katharine Gerbner: Christian Slavery

Katharine Gerbner is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Minnesota. Professor Katharine Gerbner discusses her book Christian Slavery: Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World shows how debates between slave-owners, black Christians, and missionaries transformed the practice of Protestantism and the language of race. The early role of Protestant Supremacy is challenged as debates about who can be and what it means to be baptized in the Christian Faith work…

Diane Negra: Irish Identity in America

Diane Negra is Professor of Film Studies and Screen Culture at University College Dublin. Professor Diane Negra discusses her most recent scholarship which investigates Irish identity in the United States. She begins with the election of John F. Kennedy with a sense of hopefulness which progressed through the 1980s and 1990s with an explosion of interest in all things Irish. But beginning in the 2000s, Professor Negra locates a growing sense of dread as images of skulls and death begin to…

Nell Irvin Painter: History of White People

Nell Irvin Painter is the award-winning author of many books, including Sojourner Truth, Southern History Across the Color Line, Creating Black Americans, The History of White People, and Standing at Armageddon. She is currently the Edwards Professor of American History, Emerita, at Princeton University. She has a second career as an artist after retirement from Princeton University and lives in Newark, New Jersey. Professor Painter discusses her book, THE HISTORY OF WHITE PEOPLE. Prof. Painter…

Leslie Picca: Two Face Racism

Professor Leslie Picca discusses her work, Two-Faced Racism: Whites in the Backstage and Frontstage, which examines the racial attitudes and behaviors exhibited by whites in private versus public settings. Prof. Picca explains how simple racial jokes work to maintain dominant racism while offering up an easy out for racists. The creation of these white safe spaces where intolerance and prejudice are elaborated are rarely challenged by other whites, instead the behaviors are excused or dismissed.…

Fran Shor: White Identity Politics

Francis Shor is an Emeritus Professor of History at Wayne State University. Professor Fran Shor talks about his book, Weaponized Whiteness [https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/...] which interrogates the meanings and implications of white supremacy and, more specifically, white identity politics from historical and sociological perspectives. Prof. Shor looks at the history of immigration, slavery, and moments of resistance against White Supremacy. Examining how white people participated in the…

Kathryn Gin Lum: Heathen and Race-Making in the Chirstian World

Kathryn Gin Lum is Associate Professor of Religious Studies in collaboration with the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity and History (by courtesy) at Stanford University. Professor Kathryn Gin Lum discusses her book, "Heathen: Religion and Race in American History ." Prof. Lum begins by explaining the Doctrine of Discovery and how the colonizers of the Americas imported the idea of the pagan or heathen. How Christian missionaries came to understand native…

Fran Shor: Weaponized Whiteness and Gun Violence

Why does the United States have so much gun violence and why is it so difficult to overcome? Obviously, there are numerous contributing factors to the persistence of gun violence from the legacy of a frontier past to the proliferation of guns to toxic masculinity. However, one significant aspect, often overlooked, is the role of systemic racism. This power point presentation will explore the long history of racist currents in American gun violence. Francis Shor is a Professor Emeritus of History…