New Brighton Park in Vancouver with the Viterra grain terminal in the background
Talk by Dr. Claire Jean Kim
Thursday November 16, 2017, 7–9 p.m. Henry F. Hall Building, H-431, 1455 De Maisonneuve Blvd. West
Abstract: This talk approaches the controversy over the killing of the gorilla Harambe in the Cincinnati Zoo in May 2016 as a unique window onto the making of animalness and blackness in the contemporary U.S. The construction of the “human” in relation to both the “animal” and the “black” is explored.
Bio: Claire Jean Kim is a Professor of Political Science and Asian American Studies at the University of California, Irvine. An influential scholar in animal studies, her work is at the vanguard of theorizing the intersections of racialization, animality and nonhuman life. Her most recent book, Dangerous Crossings: Race, Species, and Nature in a Multicultural Age (Cambridge University Press, 2015), won the Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association’s Section on Race, Ethnicity, and Politics.
Reading seminar is from 3 – 4:30 p.m. in room H-1252
Please email Jesse Arseneault or Rosemary Collard to sign up and obtain the readings.
A discussion led by Dr. Kim, on her forthcoming chapter, Abolition, in the publication, Critical Terms for Animal Studies (ed. Lori Gruen, University of Chicago Press), and a text by Jared Sexton (2010), People-of-Color-Blindness: Notes on the Afterlife of Slavery.