Stand Up! The New Politics of Racial Uplift - A Public Philosophy Symposium - Events

May 2, 2008 all day
Location: Temple University - Kiva Auditorium and Tuttleman Learning Center, Room 101
Latest Activity: Jan 20, 2020

Stand Up! The New Politics of Racial Uplift A Public Philosophy Symposium Temple University Friday, May 2nd, 2008 9am to 5pm Kiva Auditorium and Tuttleman Learning Center, Room 101 For information about participants, schedule, and work by participants and material relevant to symposium themes, go to our website: http://www.temple.edu/philosophy/standup/ Purpose of Symposium: The Millions More Movement, Cosby's 'call-outs,' and other recent trends renew an old approach to black political thought and practice. The racial uplift tradition tries to improve the conditions of black life by insisting on moral refinement and race-based organization. Uplift ideology and practice have a long and storied past, but critics of the tradition worry over its limitations. Some express concern that it is anti-democratic, intolerant, elitist, sexist, and heterosexist. Others think it focuses too much on personal morality and cultural pathology and not enough on social justice and political economy. The participants in the 'Stand Up!' symposium will think through the risks and rewards of this new racial uplift politics. This interdisciplinary exercise in public philosophy will explore the implications of a social phenomenon with broad ethical significance. The new politics of racial uplift emerges from a widely shared conviction that something is deeply wrong in American society. Our public philosophy conference will take this judgment seriously, and subject this politics to searching and critical scrutiny. Confirmed Participants: Angela D. Dillard, Afroamerican and African Studies and Residential College, LSA, at the University of Michigan Kenyon Farrow, essayist, organizer, media and communications specialist, and board co-chair for Queers for Economic Justice Kevin Gaines, Afroamerican and African Studies and History at the University of Michigan Kathryn T. Gines, African American and Diaspora Studies and Philosophy at Vanderbilt University Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., Religion and African American Studies at Princeton University and the Jamestown Project Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Womens Research and Resource Center and the Womens Studies at Spelman College Joy James, Humanities and Political Science at Williams College and Senior Research Fellow in the Center for African and African American Studies at the University of Texas-Austin Adolph Reed, Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania Jared Sexton, African American Studies and Film & Media Studies at the University of California, Irvine Aishah Shahidah Simmons, AfroLez® Productions and award-winning African-American feminist lesbian documentary filmmaker, international lecturer, writer, activist, and producer, writer, and director of the internationally acclaimed documentary NO! Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr., Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard University Law School and the Jamestown Project Paul C. Taylor, Philosophy at Temple University and the Jamestown Project Sponsors: Temple University Department of Philosophy, the Office of the Provost, the College of Liberal Arts, the Center for Humanities at Temple, the Ira Lawrence Family Fund, and the Jamestown Project The symposium is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Tamara K. Nopper, assistant organizer, at

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