Small Acts and Identity
Thursday 28th October | 5.30pm-7.00pm | Zoom/ Parkinson building Seminar Room B.08 We're pleased to announce that our second meeting of the year will pair the introduction to Paul Gilroy's 1996 book S mall Acts: Thoughts on the Politics of Black Culture and the essay ‘British Cultural Studies and the Pitfalls of Identity’. Gilroy’s introduction to Small Acts opens a varied collection of essays which reflect on different forms and conditions of black art and culture and their political possibilities, and analyse a particular moment of black British history. The introduction takes culture as the site for the exploration of the debates and political tensions which emerge around the representation and identities of black communities. Organising itself around a critique of ‘ethnic absolutism’, it begins to lay the ground work for a vital discussion of race and culture which challenges the use of homogenous concepts of unity to secure racial identity. Additional ref...