November 2-3, 2018, Drs. Willie Wright, Yousuf Al-Bulushi, and Adam Bledsoe will host an urban geography seminar in Baltimore, Maryland. The workshop, “(anti)Blackness in the American Metropolis,” is designed to address issues related to the condition of Blackness, Black people and communities in American cities, particularly majority Black cities. Our purpose for this gathering is to intervene in an interdisciplinary area of study (Black urbanism or the Black urban experience) that aside from key works by elder geographers (Bunge, Rose, Wilson) and more recent scholars (Derickson, Gilmore, McKittrick, Shabazz, Woods), is lacking in a sustained interest and analysis from the field of geography. Thus, we ask, what does it mean to propose, and how we one grapple with the idea, that “the neoliberal city” is an anti-Black city, or rather, is sustained by an anti-Black animus? And how are Black communities forging other modes of urban social life in these same spaces?
We welcome attendees to this free, two-day seminar. Sessions will include presentations from scholars and organizers from a variety of disciplines and locales. We will culminate the gathering with a keynote address by Ananya Roy at Red Emma’s Bookstore. The Black Geographies Specialty Group has generously offered to provide a travel award in the amount of $160 for a graduate student, adjunct faculty, or organizer/public intellectual attending the gathering.
