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#Summer Syllabus Discussion Tonight on a Season of Race-Based Incidents

Faculty will discuss a variety of race-based incidents that occurred this past summer.
Faculty will discuss a variety of race-based incidents that occurred this past summer.

Inspired by the #CharlestonSyllabus hashtag that circulated in the aftermath of the shooting death of 9 African-American parishioners in Charleston’s Mother Emanuel AME Church, several Duke faculty will participate in a free panel discussion tonight. They aim to help educate and reveal the nuances of race in in light of recent developments this summer.

The discussion, "#SummerSyllabus2015," will be held at 7 p.m. Monday, Aug. 31, in White Lecture Hall on Duke’s East Campus. It will feature professors Kerry Haynie (Political Science), Karla F.C. Holloway (English) and Mark Anthony Neal (African & African American Studies) in open dialogue about the steady stream of racial incidents that defined summer 2015.

The faculty will address topics such as:

  • the Charleston shooting
  • the Confederate flag debate
  • Sandra Bland’s death in police custody
  • the police killing of Samuel DeBose
  • the #BlackLivesMatter movement
  • the role of #BlackTwitter
  • author Ta-Nehisi Coates’ latest book
  • the noose hanging on the Duke University quad
  • and Rachel Dolezal, the former NAACP Spokane chapter president who lied about her race.  

The conversation will be moderated by Frank Stasio, host of WUNC’s signature program “The State of Things.” For those unable to attend, the event will be recorded and posted online.

Last fall, a group of faculty held a similar forum around the police killing of unarmed teen Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.

The event is the first hosted by the Duke Council on Race and Ethnicity (DCORE), co-directed by professors Haynie and Neal.