Tigermedia - Contain and Control: The American Obsession with the Black Body
Contain and Control: The American Obsession with the Black Body
Date: November 18th, 2020
Duration:
59m:31s
This lecture took place on November 18, 2020 and was part of the 2020-21 Harriet and Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center (KHC) and National Endowment for the Humanities Colloquium entitled, “Internment & Resistance: Confronting Mass Detention and Dehumanization.” This colloquium is aligned with the KHC’s original exhibition, “The Concentration Camps: Inside the Nazi System of Incarceration and Genocide” - http://khc.qcc.cuny.edu/camps/
An overview of the ways the bodies of Black Americans have been represented in the dominant (white) American culture from slavery to the current moment of mass incarceration and over-policing reveals the tension between an impulse to destroy and the desire to exploit. In American imagery and reality, Black bodies are trapped by the cruel paradox of being treated as simultaneously expendable and profitable. Dr. Agnieszka Tuszynska, Associate Professor of English at Queensborough Community College of the City University of New York, will offer examples from visual culture, literature, and legal history to illustrate how myths and stereotypes about Black people have been used to justify various forms of control and containment of Black lives. Presented in partnership with the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center. For more information about the KHC at Queensborough Community College, please visit http://khc.qcc.cuny.edu