Stand Up! The New Politics of Racial

Stand Up! The New Politics of Racial Uplift
A Public Philosophy Symposium

Temple University
Friday, May 2nd, 2008
9am to 5pm
Kiva Auditorium and Tuttleman Learning Center, Room 101

For information about participants, schedule, and work by participants and
material relevant to symposium themes, go to our website:
http://www.temple.edu/philosophy/standup/

Purpose of Symposium:
The Millions More Movement, Cosby's 'call-outs,' and other recent trends
renew an old approach to black political thought and practice. The racial uplift
tradition tries to improve the conditions of black life by insisting on moral
refinement and race-based organization. Uplift ideology and practice have a
long and storied past, but critics of the tradition worry over its limitations.
Some express concern that it is anti-democratic, intolerant, elitist, sexist,
and heterosexist. Others think it focuses too much on personal morality and
cultural pathology and not enough on social justice and political economy.

The participants in the 'Stand Up!' symposium will think through the risks
and rewards of this new racial uplift politics. This interdisciplinary exercise
in public philosophy will explore the implications of a social phenomenon with
broad ethical significance. The new politics of racial uplift emerges from a
widely shared conviction that something is deeply wrong in American society.
Our public philosophy conference will take this judgment seriously, and subject
this politics to searching and critical scrutiny.

Confirmed Participants:

• Angela D. Dillard, Afroamerican and African Studies and Residential College,
LSA, at the University of Michigan
• Kenyon Farrow, essayist, organizer, media and communications specialist, and
board co-chair for Queers for Economic Justice
• Kevin Gaines, Afroamerican and African Studies and History at the University
of Michigan
• Kathryn T. Gines, African American and Diaspora Studies and Philosophy at
Vanderbilt University
• Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., Religion and African American Studies at Princeton
University and the Jamestown Project
• Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Women’s Research and Resource Center and the Women’s
Studies at Spelman College
• Joy James, Humanities and Political Science at Williams College and Senior
Research Fellow in the Center for African and African American Studies at the
University of Texas-Austin
• Adolph Reed, Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania
• Jared Sexton, African American Studies and Film & Media Studies at the
University of California, Irvine
• Aishah Shahidah Simmons, AfroLez® Productions and award-winning
African-American feminist lesbian documentary filmmaker, international lecturer, writer,
activist, and producer, writer, and director of the internationally acclaimed
documentary NO!
• Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr., Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard University
Law School and the Jamestown Project
• Paul C. Taylor, Philosophy at Temple University and the Jamestown Project

Sponsors:
Temple University Department of Philosophy, the Office of the Provost, the
College of Liberal Arts, the Center for Humanities at Temple, the Ira Lawrence
Family Fund, and the Jamestown Project

The symposium is free and open to the public.

For more information, contact Tamara K. Nopper, assistant organizer, at


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s. e. anderson is author of "The Black Holocaust for Beginners"
Social Activism is not a hobby: it's a Lifestyle lasting a Lifetime
http://blackeducator.blogspot.com
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