The inaugural Racial Justice lecture will be hosted by Principal and Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli. We welcome Professor Patricia Hill Collins, Distinguished University Professor Emeritus in Sociology, University of Maryland / Charles Phelps Taft Emeritus Professor of African American Studies, University of Cincinnati as our first speaker for this inaugural lecture.

This is the first event in a new series which has been established through the University’s Understanding Racism, Transforming University Cultures (URTUC) programme. URTUC aims to address structural racial inequalities faced by our community and publicly states our commitment to being an anti-racist institution.

The lecture will be held at the James McCune Smith Learning Hub within Room 438.

Doors will be from 6.30pm with the lecture taking place from 7pm until 8pm.

Toward Racial Justice: Black Youth and Political Activism

Analyses of racial justice have long reflected the worldviews of those with the epistemological power to define the meaning of racism. Within this top down logic, Black youth have often been depicted as a social problem within communities and for their nation states. But how might the bottom up perspectives of Black youth shape understandings of racism and racial justice? Such youth are far more likely to see the poverty, education and violence that shape their lives as social problems. In my presentation, I investigate how the generational consciousness of Black youth gained by living within an unjust racial society points toward expanded expressions both of political activism and of the meaning of racial justice.

About the speaker

Patricia Hill Collins is Distinguished University Professor Emerita of Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park, and Charles Phelps Taft Professor Emerita of African American Studies at the University of Cincinnati. Her books include Black Feminist Thought (1990, 2000, 2022); Fighting Words (1998); Black Sexual Politics (2004); From Black Power to Hip Hop (2005); Intersectionality (2016; 2020, co-authored with Sirma Bilge); Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory (2019), and Lethal Intersections: Race, Gender, and Violence (2024). Her anthology Race, Class, and Gender: Intersections and Inequalities, 11th ed. (2024), edited with Margaret Andersen, has been widely used for over 30 years in over 200 colleges and universities. Her books and articles have been translated into Portuguese, German, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Romanian, French, Spanish and Turkish. Professor Collins has held editorial positions with professional journals, lectured widely in the United States and internationally, served in many capacities in professional organizations, and has acted as consultant for community organizations. In 2008, she became the 100th President of the American Sociological Association, the first African American woman elected to this position in the organization’s 104-year history. In 2022, she was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. In 2023, she was awarded the prestigious Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture, an award given annually to an individual whose ideas have profoundly shaped human self-understanding and advancement in a rapidly changing world.

Racial Justice Lecture: Black Youth, Violence and Political Activism