Past Events: Racial Justice Colloquium Fall 2022

In an effort to promote and advance our Racial Justice plan, the Global Studies Department hosted a colloquium on Racial Studies. The Fall 2022 highlighted eleven scholars who discussed the complexities of racial justice and solidarity movements globally. Organizers Ricado Jacobs and Satyajit Singh, along with graduate assistant Eugene Riordan Jr, coordinated a completely hybrid colloquium, inviting scholars from around the world to attend and speak virtually. The colloquium began with Dr. Elisabeth Ayuk-Etang, the UCSB Scholar Rescue Fund Fellow, discussing environmental racism in geography and Black women’s writing, with an introduction from Dean Charlie Hale to kick off the series. Other speakers discussed transnational activist movements, religious and economic identities, racism within and between classes and castes, decolonization in museum and education settings, and the political importance of place, for example, in the discourse around Palestine. Each week the organizers received messages of excitement for the speakers and the focus of the colloquium. In staying true to the theme, the final four speakers canceled their talks in solidarity with the UC-wide UAW graduate student worker strike, and we hope to have them speak in our department sometime in the future. The annual Global Studies Colloquium is sponsored by the Orfalea Foundation for Global Studies MA Program.