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Theme for 20-21

Openings

Center for Studying Structures of Race

Annual Theme – 2020-2021

A painting called "The Vine That Ate the South" by William Binnie, dated 2018

“The Vine That Ate the South” (2018) – William Binnie - Photo Courtesy of Artist

What does it mean to teach and learn at a College built by enslaved laborers? How do we reconcile our foundational liberal values with the grim reality of a society steeped in systemic racism? Can a college exist without race?

As we begin to consider these and other questions, we might uncover new opportunities for rethinking our college. This moment – poised between the weight of history and the opportunities of an imagined future – is an opening for decisive action.

In pursuit of these questions, the first annual theme for the Center for Studying Structures of Race is Openings. The theme captures the process of opening a new teaching and research space on campus; it thinks about openings as a series of opportunities for new forms of thinking and dialogue about structures of race; and it considers the difficult movements we must make between the past and present as we interpret the structures of race on and around our campus.

These questions about openings are as connected to the physical spaces around us as they are about the concepts we must debate. There are openings that have always been here: the indentation on Turbyfill Quad where enslaved laborers manufactured bricks for our first campus buildings. And there are also openings that will soon be here: the spatial void left by the inevitable removal of the Confederate monument in front of West Hall. We must see these openings, and engage them.

We now have an opening. Please join the Center for Studying Structures of Race to consider the complexities that these openings present.

William Burton Binnie discusses his painting "The Vine that Ate the South” as part of the ‘On the Arts’ research project at the Center for Studying Structures of Race.  Binnie’s painting is currently on display in the Olin Hall Galleries.

Click here to visit the Olin Hall Galleries page.

Activities

Activities for this opening year at the Center for Studying Structures of Race will include:

  1. Open houses held throughout the academic year to encourage visits from campus and community. The Open houses will include the display of art work related to issues related to the theme of Openings, including “The Vine That Ate the South” from the Roanoke College permanent collection, and materials that begin to tell the story of enslaved labor at the college.
  2. A campus reading of Octavia Butler’s novel, Kindred, sponsored by the Center, the Fintel Library, and the Jordan Endowment. The book focuses on an African American woman who is drawn back in time from 1970s Los Angeles to the antebellum eastern shore of Maryland where she lives as an enslaved person. The novel offers important commentary on the legacies of slavery, the dynamics of race and gender across broad periods of time, and the implications of attempting to think about the past and present at the same time.  We will create discussion groups and other events related to the book that help us find new ways of approaching conversations about structural racism.
  3. Host Karen Collins as a Copenhaver artist in residence in Spring of 2021. Collins is the creator of the African American Miniature Museum, and her works depict important moments and events in African American history. Click here to visit her museum's website.
  4. Collaborate with the Office of Multicultural Affairs to develop pedagogical training on issues related to structural racism.
  5. Provide curriculum development grants for new courses that align with the broad objectives of the Center for Studying Structures of Race.
  6. Support student and faculty research on the Center’s three ongoing projects: ‘Genealogy of Slavery’; ‘Memorials and Monuments’; and ‘On the Arts.’

For more information, or to get involved, please email Jesse Bucher: bucher@roanoke.edu.