The Black Europe Symposium brings together experts in the field for interdisciplinary discussion around the notion of formations of Blackness broadly defined in Europe and the diaspora. Scholars will showcase their cutting-edge research on a wide range of topics, including identity and subjectivity formations in migrant workers, politics of care, the formation of Blackness in the Balkans, and more.
Symposium schedule:
10 A.M. - "The Battle for Black Studies in Europe" - Kehinde Andrews, Professor of Black Studies, Birmingham City University
11 A.M. - "Who Handles the Dead and What This Says about 'Blackness': An Exploration of Roma, Balkan Egyptians, and Proximity to Death in Albania and Kosovë" - Chelsi West Ohueri, Assistant Professor of Slavic and Eurasian Studies, University of Texas at Austin
1 P.M. - "The Sky is the Limit: Identity and Subjectivity Formation of Young Caribbean Women to Britain" - Karen Flynn, Terrance & Karyn Holm Endowed Professor of Nursing, University of Illinois Chicago
2 P.M. - Roundtable Discussion with Teresa Barnes, Professor of History, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Peter Wright, Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages & Literatures, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; and Charles Webster, Director of the German Language Program, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
About the presenters:
Kehinde Andrews is a Professor of Black Studies in the School of Social Sciences at Birmingham City University. He is the director of the Centre for Critical Social Research, founder of the Harambee Organisation of Black Unity, and co-chair of the UK Black Studies Association. Andrews is the first Black Studies professor in the UK and led the establishment of the first Black Studies programme in Europe at Birmingham City University. He is the author of several books, including his most recent, The Psychosis of Whiteness: Surviving the Insanity of a Racist World (2023), as well as Back to Black: Retelling Radicalism for the 21st Century (2018), and his first book, Resisting Racism: Race, Inequality and the Black Supplementary School Movement (2013).
Karen Flynn is the Terrance & Karyn Holm Endowed Professor in the Department of Population Health Nursing Science at the University of Illinois, Chicago, College of Nursing and director of the Midwest Nursing History Research Center. Her research lies at the intersection of Black feminist and diaspora studies; health and care work; nursing history, transnational mobilities with keen attention to race, gender, and equity. Her award-winning book Moving Beyond Borders: Black Canadian and Caribbean women in the African Canadian Diaspora (2011) is the first book length manuscript that examines the experiences of Black Canadian and Caribbean nurses and the transnational formation of the occupation.
Chelsi West Ohueri is a sociocultural anthropologist and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies with appointments in the Department of Anthropology and the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas Austin. Her scholarship is primarily concerned with the study of race and racialization, belonging, marginalization, and medical anthropology. She has conducted extensive ethnographic research throughout Albania and the Balkan region, and is completing her ethnographic book project on configurations of racial belonging among Albanian, Romani, and Egyptian communities, as well as the (re)productions of whiteness and blackness in this region and throughout Europe.