'"No Humans Involved": An Open Letter to My Colleagues'

Tuesday 22nd November | 5:30 – 7:00pm | The Alumni Room (School of English)

 

We will begin our exploration of Sylvia Wynter’s oeuvre with her ground-breaking text ‘“No Humans Involved”: An Open Letter to my Colleagues’ (1992) in which Wynter responds to the brutal beating and arrest of Rodney King at the hands of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). During the trial and subsequent acquittal of the police officers responsible, it emerged that the acronym NHI (No Humans Involved) was routinely ascribed by LAPD officers to young, unemployed black men. In this extraordinary intervention, Wynter interrogates the dominant knowledge systems that exclude some people from being counted as ‘human’, and the role of the university in perpetuating these dangerous and exclusionary classificatory logics.

Although the meeting will focus on ‘“No Humans Involved”’, we are suggesting as potential further reading a short introduction to Wynter’s work by Katherine McKittrick 'Yours in the Intellectual Struggle: Sylvia Wynter and the Realization of the Living'.

The meeting will be held in the alumni room in the School of English (Floor 1, House 10 Cavendish Road) on Tuesday 22nd November between 5:30-7:00pm followed by a pub social. Please do let us know if you have any questions, concerns or requirements at quiltingpoints@gmail.com.

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