On Thursday, February 20, 2014, I gave a lecture at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. It proved to be a truly special campus visit because my presentation was preceded by a dramatic reading of one of the lynching plays, Georgia Douglas Johnson's Safe, which I discuss in Chapter 5 of Living with Lynching.
This was a major accomplishment that represented the commitment of not only the students who made time to rehearse but also of Professor Karlos Hill, who arranged my visit. Dr. Hill partnered with Professor Courtney Brown from Theatre, who served as director, guiding the students through rehearsals.
The dramatic reading set up my lecture even more beautifully than I assumed it would. I can only assume that the lively Q&A, which featured several questions that I had never received before, benefited from the context the actors provided. A truly remarkable visit that I will never forget!
I will give a lecture at Texas Tech University on Thursday, February 20th. It is free and open to the public, and it will be preceded by a dramatic reading of a one-act lynching play by Texas Tech students.
On, Wednesday, February 26th, I will be the guest on A Public Affair, an hour-long community radio show based in Madison, Wisconsin on WORT 89.9FM. The insightful host is Karma Chavez, author of Queer Migration Politics: Activist Rhetoric and Coalitional Possibilities. We will discuss Living with Lynching, Black History Month, racial violence, and discourses and practices of U.S. citizenship. Please tune in ONLINE if you're not in Madison. (The "Listen Live" link is at the top right of the show's webpage.) AND, please feel free to CALL IN: 608- 256-2001. The show airs Noon to 1PM Central time, 1PM to 2PM Eastern time.
On Thursday, February 27th, I will give a lecture at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. Though it is in the middle of the day—the college's common hour, from 11am to noon—it is free and open to the public. Please spread the word! It would be great to have people from outside of campus attend.
Well, you can't beat that with a stick!! $2.99!!! I don't feel cheap at all, just accessible. :-)
I want my work to make a difference, and I believe it can if people
actually read it. We really don't know much about our history, and Living with Lynching truly offers a new way to understand how we managed
to survive and thrive.
You'll see this price on Amazon and other outlets throughout the month of February, and 4 other University of Illinois Press titles are also available for this amazing price. Details in the announcement from the press HERE.
Living with Lynching received a favorable review in the journal Legacy, alongside a book I very much admire, Crystal Feimster's Southern Horrors (Harvard UP). The reviewer, Jennie Lightweis-Goff, is author of Blood at the Root: Lynching As American Cultural Nucleus.
She begins by marking how dramatically scholarship on racial violence has proliferated since 2002. She notes, "However, despite the upsurge of scholarship on lynching, Koritha Mitchell's Living with Lynching suggests that the process of
redress has scarcely begun.
Mitchell begins her book with a bracing introduction that
radically reimagines the relationship between scholarship on lynching and
the photography of the dead.... " Also, "In addition to unearthing an underexplored archive of black
women's writing, Mitchell engages with one of the central problematics
of feminist and critical race theories: the ethics of representing
atrocity."
Lightweis-Goff concludes, "Mitchell's alternative account of black communities and values and
Feimster's counter-narratives about white and black women's
responses to lynching are essential reading in a scholarly climate that
provides a plethora of writing on collective violence"
For the full review, see Legacy 30.2 (2013): 417 - 20.
On Thursday, November 14, 2013, I gave a lecture at the University of Richmond. The event was sponsored by the Department of Theate & Dance and took place on Cousins Stage of the Modlin Center for the Arts. Department Chair Dorothy Holland made the visit possible, and I was warmly greeted by several colleagues, including professors Patricia Herrera, Walter Schoen, madison moore, Chuck Mike, W. Reed West, Anne Norman Van Gelder, Johann Stegmeir, and Alicia Díaz.
The majority of those in attendance were undergraduate students, one of whom asked how I cope with all the violence I study. What an incisive and crucial question! Among other things, I shared with her that I would be running the Richmond Half Marathon that very Saturday. I told her that that fact was very much related to just how important her question was.
Professor
Patricia Herrera was a wonderful host and she asked a question about recent movies about slavery that
allowed me to articulate many of my concerns with how the entertainment
industry treats black pain.
Cousin Nate lives in Richmond, so he made a point of coming to talk to me afterward. So nice to have an unexpected family element to the weekend!
On Friday, November 15, 2013, I gave a book lecture in Charlottesville at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. It was a special treat! Nearly everyone in attendance was an established scholar, so they were extraordinarily engaged. Author Hermine Pinson of William and Mary helped make the visit possible, and Foundation president Robert C. Vaughan, III made time to attend. University of Virginia colleagues, such as Marlon Ross and Lisa Woolfork, attended and asked questions that will continue to inform my thinking. It was also a treat to have rising literary scholar Laura Goldblatt there. As usual, her contribution to the discussion was challenging and invigorating.
The next day, Saturday, November 16, 2013, I ran the Richmond Half Marathon and set a new PR! Cousin Nate even got a picture of my finish! This was my 10th half marathon but definitely the first time that I finished with so much energy that I threw my hands up in victory! A great way to cap off an amazing weekend!
