Anthropology has usually been seen as the most colonial of the disciplines, and the legacies of 19th century scientific racism still hover over our efforts at transformation. In this talk, Thomas will discuss a range of multi-modal and curricular projects that have been geared toward generating necessary but often difficult conversations, and toward elaborating new foundations for sociality and liberation.
Deborah A. Thomas is the R. Jean Brownlee Professor of Anthropology, and the Director of the Center for Experimental Ethnography at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Political Life in the Wake of the Plantation, Exceptional Violence, and Modern Blackness. Thomas co-directed the documentary films Bad Friday and Four Days in May, and she is the co-curator of a multi-media installation titled Bearing Witness: Four Days in West Kingston. Prior to her life in the academy, she was a professional dancer with the New York-based Urban Bush Women.
Department of Evolutionary Anthropology