Events Calendar

On April 4–6, 2024, English graduate students are hosting the 23rd annual Craft Critique Culture interdisciplinary graduate conference on the University of Iowa campus. This year’s conference addresses themes of “Black Legacies.” For this conference, “Black Legacies” is, first, a recognition and continued contribution to the history of Black Studies programs in colleges and universities, which emerged in the 1960s and ’70s. “Black Legacies” is also a way to honor and celebrate the power of institutional firsts—the first Black student(s), Black professor(s), and Black impact. In Invisible Hawkeyes: African Americans at the University of Iowa During the Long Civil Rights Era, Drs. Lena and Michael Hill claim that the presence of African American students on the University of Iowa’s campus “challenged stereotypes that dismissed the university as flat, naïve, and bereft of aesthetic urbanity.” Similarly, we believe the presence of Black Studies and the presence of Black people in the academy not only raises academic consciousness but also brings social, political, and cultural reckoning to colleges and universities across the nation.

Graduate scholars who contribute to the field of Black Studies will present their research that addresses topics including but not limited to:

Histories of Black Resistance

Black Archival Studies

Pedagogy

Political and Social Movements

Education and Policy

Black Language and Linguistics

Black Art, Performance, and Literature

Black Legacies in STEM

Creative Work

April 5 at noon will be the Plenary Address by Dr. Ashley Howard of University of Iowa's History and African American Studies Departments!

April 5 at 4 p.m. will be the Keynote Presentation by Dr. Lena Hill, provost at Washington and Lee University!

This conference has been made possible by the generous support of the following University of Iowa Departments and Units: French and Italian, International Studies, Anthropology, Cinematic Arts, Spanish and Portuguese, History, American Studies, School of Art and Art History, Center for the Book, Religious Studies, Rhetoric, English, the James O. Freedman Professor of Letters, M.F. Carpenter Research Fund, University of Iowa Graduate College, Graduate and Professional Student Government, and the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies

Visit our website, https://craftcritiquecultureconference.wordpress.com/, to read more about our conference speakers and stay up to date on conference details!