Ithaca College

Conversations on Race & Anthropology is an Ithaca College student inspired and student driven conversation series that tackles the connections between anthropology and race, focusing on race and its intersections with other systems of oppression. Why do anthropology departments need these kinds of conversations? The history of anthropology is rooted in colonialism and the creation of race as a system of inequality. Much of anthropology today focuses on the positive contributions of anthropologists, but not so much on the legacies of racism and its impacts today. This conversation hopes to create a dialectic to redress this by bringing together campus communities with anthropologists of color and anthropologists from other underrepresented groups who interrogate racialization and racism with other systems of oppression in their research. Conversations on Race & Anthropology aims to spark conversation and engagement within anthropology to explore and develop new holistic, critical and interdisciplinary tools for how to dismantle systems of oppression in and outside the discipline.

 The inaugural Spring 2019 event, inspired by Audre Lorde’s essay, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” illuminates why using the same tools “never enable us to bring about genuine change.”  The first event will bring together Dr. Aja Lans (Biological Anthropologist) and Dr. Sue-Je Gage (Cultural Anthropologist) from Ithaca College and Dr. Viranijni P Munasinghe (Cultural Anthropologist) and Mellon Mays Fellow Benjamin Salinas (Ethnomusicologist) from Cornell University.

Ithaca College students from the Race & Anthropology Steering Committee will facilitate conversations with this panel of local scholars. Panelists will discuss their research, positionalities as scholars of color in anthropology, as well as their contributions to the positive shifts in anthropology. Participants will then deepen the discussion in small break-out sessions. This will be followed with concluding remarks, suggestions for next year’s event and end with a reception.  

This event is open to the public. We hope to see you at our inaugural event!

Individuals requiring accommodations should contact Dr. Sue-Je Gage at sgage@ithaca.edu or

(607) 274-3574. We ask that requests for accommodations be made as soon as possible.

 Sincerely,

The 2018-19 Conversations on Race & Anthropology Steering Committee

Walt Martzen, Class of 2019

Triniece Smith, Class of 2019

Calissa Brown, Class of 2019

Dr. Sue-Je Gage, Associate Professor

Dr. Jennifer Muller, Chair of Anthropology