In this seminar, we’ll listen, learn, reflect and respond to issues around mobility (physical, mental, socio-economical, political, etc) and safety for Black Americans through words, images, and sounds. This two-semester course is organized into a bildungsroman with two-week topics around living while Black. The first semester included birthing, breathing, sleeping, eating, and walking. This semester includes learning, voting, driving, working, and loving. The first-semester course is not required for the second.

By the end of each semester, students should have the resources and tools to respond critically to issues of Black mobility in the context of their own lives, fields and interests. Sessions will start with public guest panels (90 minutes) and end with private student-led discussions (90 minutes) on assigned materials.

Guest panelists will include John Akomfrah (The March, 2013), Garrett Bradley (America, 2019), Anthony A. Jack (The Privileged Poor, 2019), Darryl Pinckney (Blackballed: The Black Vote and US Democracy, NYRB: 2014), Nsé Ufot (New Georgia Project), Frank Baumgartner (Suspect Citizen: What 20 Million Traffic Stops Tell Us About Policing and Race, 2018), Gretchen Sorin (Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights, 2020), and Dianne M. Stewart (Black Women, Black Love: America's War on African American Marriage, Seal Press: 2020). More to be announced soon. Register via Zoom here.

Email questions to poeticjustice@media.mit.edu.