“Where Do We Go from Here?” Revisiting Black Irish Relations and Responding to a Transnational Moment

“Where Do We Go from Here?”

Revisiting Black Irish Relations and Responding to a Transnational Moment

Conveners: Kim McClain DaCosta (NYU) and Miriam Nyhan Grey (NYU)

Online Conference at New York University

November 5, 12 and 19

People of Irish and African descent have lived in the United States for more than four centuries. Their respective trajectories — marked by complexity, conflict, and collaboration — have been shaped by American conceptions of identity, hierarchies of belonging, and access to pathways of upward mobility. The aim of this conference and programing is to examine the constellations of Blackness and Irishness in the history of the United States and beyond and use their example to ponder present conundrums around race, ethnicity, inequality and identity politics. While drawing on historical, mainly American, examples, we are encouraging responses to the contemporary transnational moment, in which conversations about social justice and the Black Lives Matter Movement resonate in Ireland as much as they do in the United States and beyond.

Friday, 19 November 2021

Register here for 19 November sessions

9–9.15am ET/2–2.15pm GMT Welcome and opening remarks, Lisa Coleman, NYU’s Senior Vice President for Global Inclusion and Strategic Innovation.

9.15–10.15am ET/2.15–3.15pm GMT Emma Dabiri (author of Twisted/Don’t Touch My Hair and What White People Can Do Next) in conversation with Kim DaCosta and Miriam Nyhan Grey.

10.30am–11.45am ET/3.30–4.45pm GMT Rachel Swarns, New York Times/New York University, “The Irish-American Priests who Sold Human Beings: Georgetown University, the Catholic Church and the American Slave Trade”. Moderated by Stephanie McCurry, Columbia University.

12–1.15pm ET/5–6.15pm GMT Miriam Nyhan Grey, New York University

BREAK

2–3.15pm ET/7–8.15pm GMT Touré Reed, Illinois State University. Introduced by James R. Barrett, Emeritus, University of Illinois).

3.30–4.45pm ET/8.30–9.45pm GMT James Carroll (National Book awardee) “The Politics of White Supremacy: A View from Irish Boston”.

5–6pm ET/10–11pm GMT Ruth Negga (leading actor in Loving (2016) and Passing (2021) in conversation with Kim DaCosta and Miriam Nyhan Grey.