/ Ray Warren Symposium on Race and Ethnic Studies/Symposium Archive

11th Annual Symposium

November 12-14, 2014

5000

How Do I Look?
Co-chairs Danni Green, Tyler Wayne Patterson, and Nima Mohamed welcome dinner guests.
Elizabeth Warren (Ray’s mother) with L&C Ombudsperson Valerie White.
Art Show Co-curators Lesedi Khabele-Stevens, Maya Flint, and Ian Blair.
Dinner guests enjoying the Art Show.
Keynote panelists with Council Chamber crowd.
Michaela Angela Davis with LC student.
Panelists, co-chairs and Symposium Director Kimberly Brodkin.
First ever! RWS Zine No. 1.
Student research panel.
Alumna Katherine Quaid on Dressing the Part panel.
Dressing the Part: Fashion and Beauty Culture.
Not My Type moderator Jessika Chi and panelist Angela Buck.
Not My Type panelists Angela Buck, Danni Green, and L&C Professor Naiomi Cameron.
Not My Type panelists Naiomi Cameron and Khalil Johnson.
Keynote Professor Mimi Thi Nguyen.
Mimi Nguyen with co-chairs and LC students.
The Business of Beauty moderator Kimberly Brodkin with Paula Hayes, L&C alumna and Trustee.
Fat Fancy boutique owners Carlee Smith and Annie Maribona on Business of Beauty panel.
Size Matters moderator L&C director Cathy Busha with panelist Cory Lira.
Fatphobia and Racism panelists.
Race Monologues.
Participants in Race Monologues.
Race Monologues participants.
Remembering Ray.

11th Annual Ray Warren Symposium on Race and Ethnic Studies

How Do I Look?: Race, Beauty, and Desire

The question at the center of this year’s symposium title invites us to consider both how we look at others and how they see us. How we wear our hair, how we adorn our bodies, how we style ourselves, what we consider to be beautiful or desirable in ourselves and others—these are not only questions of personal taste and self-expression but also issues of power and politics.

Central to the symposium is an examination of the ways in which notions of beauty are affected by ideologies of race and legacies of colonialism, slavery, and discrimination. We seek a better understanding of the ways in which our sense of ourselves and our judgments of and relations to others are shaped by large structural, historical, and economic forces that position us and frame our ways of being in the world. At the same time, we will explore ways in which self-expression can be a mode of defiance, resistance, and empowerment.

This year’s symposium aims to explore these complex global questions of race, beauty, and desire from a range of angles, including examinations of the politics of black hair, hierarchies of skin color, cosmetic surgery practices that aim to reduce characteristics associated with particular racial or ethnic groups, appropriation in the name of fashion, the interplay of racism and fatphobia, and the connections among race, beauty, and disability.

Students, faculty, activists, community leaders, and artists will come together in November to address these topics from different professional and personal perspectives. Please join us and contribute to the conversation. All symposium lectures and panels are free and open to the public.

Student Co-Chairs: Danni Green ’16, Nima Mohamed ’15, and Tyler Wayne Patterson ’16