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ĢƵ’s Department of History and Political Science will present its third annual History Research Symposium (HRS) on Feb. 14-15. The theme for this year’s event is “We Wear the Mask: Black Cultural Representation, Reproduction and Redemption.”
“We wish to promote, preserve and disseminate black history, culture and the liberal arts, and to re-center historically black universities like Tuskegee as grounds of rigorous historical inquiry, research and community engagement,” said Dr. Sheena Harris, an assistant professor of history and the symposium’s co-organizer. “We hope to renew strong networks of aspiring students and scholars, and to promote professional training, historical competency and intellectual collaboration within the humanities.”
The two-day symposium — including dinner events Thursday and Friday, and lunch on Friday — is free and open to members of the campus and surrounding communities, and area students, historians, scholars and grassroots organizers are encouraged to attend. It will feature a variety of presentations and panels — all occurring in the university’s Legacy Museum — that undergird the symposium’s theme. Activities begin at 11 a.m. on Thursday and 8:30 a.m. on Friday, and will extend to banquets each evening, which are also free and open to the public.
A full at-a-glance symposium itinerary is available for download.
Thursday and Friday’s banquets will be in the Tompkins Hall Ballroom and will feature a different keynote speaker. Seating is limited to the first 50 to register for each event. To RSVP, visit .
Thursday’s banquet, beginning at 4:45 p.m., will feature Dr. Le’Trice Danyell Donaldson, an author and instructor of African-American studies at the University of Mississippi. She will provide this year’s Phi Alpha Theta Lecture entitled “We Soldiers of Democracy: Black Military Soldiers during the Birth of Jim Crow.”
Friday’s banquet will begin at 5:15 p.m. Dr. Zachary W. Mills, a communications scholar and consultant who studies race, rhetoric, religion, media and popular culture, will provide the banquet’s keynote address, which is titled “Stay Weird: A Creative Approach to our Historical Moment.”
The History Research Symposium is part of ĢƵ’s Black History Month programs throughout February. For a complete list of Black History Month programs, visit . For additional information about the symposium, please contact Harris at sharris@tuskegee.edu.
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