The Color Line Belts the World: Race, US Empire, and Children's Literature

Please join Marilisa Jimenez Garcia, Alia Jones, Sonia Alejandra Rodriguez, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, and Lara Saguisag on September 8, Tuesday, at 7 PM for "The Color Line Belts the World: Race, US Empire, and Children's Literature." The panel will be livestreamed on YouTube (no registration or fee required).

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE PANEL

We take our title from W. E. B. Du Bois. In writing "the color line belts the world,” Du Bois insists that White supremacy and antiblackness are the organizing principles of the US imperialist project. He also argues that transnational solidarity among non-White peoples around the world is a powerful, necessary force for combatting U.S. economic, political, and military expansion. Following Du Bois, the panelists--Marilisa Jimenez Garcia, Alia Jones, Sonia Alejandra Rodriguez, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, and Lara Saguisag--will examine how our cultural narratives—specifically our narratives for children—are shaped by and respond to the U.S.’s racist empire-building project. We will engage with questions such as, How do children’s books reinforce the nation’s racist efforts to expand, occupy, extract, and accumulate? How are contestations of colonialism, neocolonialism, and coloniality expressed in children’s narratives? How does children’s literature promote transnational solidarity?

Funds for this event are provided by the Institute on Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at Lehigh University. Find more information on the institute here: https://wordpress.lehigh.edu/cres/