Diversity & Inclusion

What Does It Mean to be Chinese in U.S. Colleges Today? Story, Conversation, Reflection

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4:30 PM, Tuesday Nov 12
Fries Center for Global Studies Commons, FISK 201 

A forum featuring the diverse, complex, and evolving stories of Chinese-identifying students and faculty, be they be born in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, or New York City, and a safe and intimate space where everyone, regardless of identity, can feel comfortable to share their own and engage with others’ perspectives. Stories will be read anonymously by student volunteers, followed by a discussion moderated by Professor Yu-ting Huang (Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies)

Whether it is the U.S.- China trade war, the Huawei controversy, the Anti-Extradition protests in Hong Kong, or the growing Sino-phobic sentiments in academia and the public sphere, 2019 has not been an easy year to be Chinese in America. Chinese students, faculty, and staff at Wesleyan encounter these challenges in various ways. However, caught between the nationalist propaganda of the CCP and the overly simplistic narrative of Western media, voices from the Chinese community have been largely left out. Often seen as a homogenous, organic whole, the “Chinese identity” entails much complexity on political, cultural, and personal levels that are worthy to be explored, discussed, and understood.

This is why we from the Chinese community at Wesleyan want to make ourselves heard. We want to speak up in order to offer authentic, diverse and nuanced views about our connection and struggle with our Chinese identity, to foster a better mutual understanding with the rest of campus, and to explore common ground on which constructive and respectful conversations can be possible in the future.

There will be no photos, videos, or recording at the event.

Sponsored by the College of East Asian Studies and Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life.

Fore more information, please contact:
Mary Alice Haddad

Chair, College of East Asian Studies
Professor of Government, East Asian Studies, and Environmental Studies

Toby McNutt: Relational Dance

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Relational Dance
Open Class. No experience necessary, all are welcome!

Friday April5, 1:20-4:10PM, Schonberg Dance Building, 247 Pine Street

Working as a group requires consensus, a shared understanding of goals, boundaries, and trust. To negotiate this consensus, each group member needs to be able to communicate their needs, and that requires understanding them. We’ll practice locating our own physical and emotional boundaries, and blending them safely into duos and groups. We’ll also explore some specific tools for leaderless thinking as a group, and creating, strengthening, and straining relationships with choreography.

This lecture/demonstration is sponsored by the Dance Department and Disability Studies Course Cluster, the Division II Dean’s Office and the Center for Pedagogical Innovation.

BIO Toby MacNutt  https://www.tobymacnutt.com is a queer, nonbinary trans, and disabled dancer/choreographer, author, and teacher living in Burlington, VT. They make dance work for crutches, wheels, ground, and aerial. In June 2018 Toby premiered ENTER THE VOID, a performance installation in the darkness of space, accompanied by a sci-fi poetry guidebook. Toby has been creating performance work since 2014 and has also performed with Heidi Latsky’s GIMP Project, Tiffany Rhynard/Big APE, Nicole Dagesse/Murmurations Dance, and Lida Winfield, among others.

Beyond Assimilation: Seeking a Disabled Aesthetic 4/4

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Beyond Assimilation: Seeking a Disabled Aesthetic
Lecture/Demonstration with Toby MacNutt  https://www.tobymacnutt.com

Thursday, April 4, 4:30-6PM, Schonberg Dance Building, 247 Pine St

As disability in dance becomes more visible and mainstream, there is pressure to assimilate to mainstream dance aesthetics. But disability presents an enormous range and variation of potential in movement, perception, and thinking, by its very nature, which can expand upon and challenge the existing field. What does it mean to embrace a disabled aesthetic? How does it change dance practices and performance? Toby MacNutt will discuss these questions, show some sample work, and speculate on the future of disability in dance and why it matters.

This lecture/demonstration is sponsored by the Dance Department and Disability Studies Course Cluster, the Division II Dean’s Office and the Center for Pedagogical Innovation.

First-Generation Student End-of-the-Year Celebration Reception 5/4

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The Office of Student Affairs, The Office of Equity and Inclusion, and the 2020 Class Council would like invite all first-generation students in every class year to a reception in celebration of the end of the academic year in Woodhead Lounge on Thursday, May 4, from 4:15-5:30pm.  If you are interested in attending this event, please RSVP through this form:

https://goo.gl/forms/Tffz6HTvFdnDOqZF2

 

Anthropology and #Blacklivesmatter 11/1

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You are invited to the Anthropology department’s panel discussion on Anthropology and #BlackLivesMatter on Tuesday, 11/1! It will be a fantastic event, featuring Black feminist anthropologists Dawn-Elissa Fischer, Bianca Williams, and Wesleyan’s very own Gina Athena Ulysse in a wide-ranging conversation about research, #blacklivesmatter, activism, and decolonizing anthropology.

Tuesday, November 1
4:30-6:00pm, reception to follow
Beckham Hall
facebook event page

Poster 1 Prof U

Bianca C. Williams (Ethnic Studies and Anthropology, University of Colorado at Boulder) researches theories of race and gender within African diasporic communities, particularly the emotional aspects of being “Black” and a “woman” in the U.S. and Jamaica. She is at work finishing an ethnography, The Pursuit of Happiness: Black Women and the Politics of Emotional Transnationalism (under contract with Duke University Press) and an edited volume titled, “’Do You Feel Me?’: Exploring Black American Gender and Sexuality through Feeling and Emotion,” co-authored with Jennifer A. Woodruff. Essays in Transforming Anthropology and Cultural Anthropology explore questions of race and gender in ethnographic research and pedagogical practices. She has also edited two collections of essays on #BlackLivesMatter, one for Cultural Anthropology and one for Savage Minds. She is a member of Black Lives Matter 5280 and the AAA Working Group on Racialized Police Brutality and Extrajudicial Violence.

Dawn-Elissa Fischer  (Africana Studies, San Francisco State University), also known as the “DEF Professor,” is completing two manuscripts: Blackness, Race and Gender Politics in Japanese Hiphop and Methods to Floss, Theories to Flow: Hiphop Research, Aesthetics and Activism. Her work has been published in Doing Race: 21 Essays for the 21st Century, the Journal of Popular Music Studies, Transforming Anthropology, FIRE!!! The Multimedia Journal of Black Studies and The Western Journal of Black Studies. Dr. Fischer has co-produced a short film, Nihon Style, with Bianca White, which documents an annual Hiphop festival and its related organizations in Japan.  Dr. Fischer has participated with numerous international social justice creative arts endeavors, including, but not limited to Hiphop as a transnational social movement. She co-directs the BAHHRS (the Bay Area Hip Hop Research and Scholarship) project with Dave “Davey D” Cook and she is a founding staff member of Dr. Marcyliena Morgan’s Hiphop Archive as well as a co-founder of the National Hip Hop Political Convention.

Gina Athena Ulysse (Anthropology, Wesleyan University). In 2015, Prof. U received Wesleyan’s Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching and the Haitian Studies Association award for Excellence in Scholarship.  A public anthropologist and performance artist, Ulysse’s research integrates her interests in Black diasporic conditions, ethnography, pedadogy, performance and representation. More specifically, her interdisciplinary work explores the continuous impact of history on agency and possibilities of social justice in the present. Her publications include Why Haiti Needs New Narratives: A Post Quake Chronicle (2015) and Downtown Ladies: Informal Commercial Importing, A Haitian Anthropologist and Self-Making in Jamaica (2007), and Because When God is too Busy:Haiti, me & THE WORLD (2016) as well as numerous articles and book chapters. Her performance projects include VooDooDoll, What if Haiti Were a Woman? and Contemplating Absences and Distances. Ulysse guest edited “Caribbean Rasanblaj” (2015) a double issue of e-misférica journal and “Pawol Fanm sou Douz Janvye” (2011) in Meridians journal. An intermittent blogger, she often muses on AfricaIsACountry, Huffington Post, Ms Blog and Tikkun Daily.