CO-SPONSORSHIP EVENT | Silences Broken: A Symposium in Honor of Michele Mitchell
1014 Tisch Hall
The Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies at the University of Michigan is pleased to host “Silences Broken: A Symposium in Honor of Michele Mitchell.” Mitchell is an associate professor of history at New York University and a former faculty member in the Department of History at the University of Michigan. Over the past twenty years since the publication of Righteous Propagation (2004), as well as the past twenty-five years since her landmark “Silences Broken, Silences Kept” essay (Gender & History, 1999), numerous scholars have drawn on Mitchell’s work, mentorship, and intellectual generosity to produce their own cutting-edge scholarship.
This two-day symposium features four panels that consider Mitchell’s contributions to histories of African American politics, gender and sexuality, childhood and the family, and African American and African diaspora studies. We hope you can join us as we return to these two foundational works to explore their historiographical, methodological, and epistemological impact.
Image: two African American women, three-quarter length portrait, seated, facing each other, Library of Congress, 1899/1900
Thursday, March 27
1014 Tisch Hall
4:00-5:30 pm: Welcome and Plenary Panel
- Nancy MacLean (Duke University)
- Michele Mitchell (New York University)
- Kidada Williams (Wayne State University)
- N.D.B. Connolly (Johns Hopkins University), moderator
Friday, March 28
1014 Tisch Hall
10:00-10:30 am: Opening Remarks
10:30 am-12:00 pm: Roundtable I: Histories of Gender and Sexuality
- Cheryl D. Hicks (University of Delaware)
- Jennifer Dominique Jones (University of Michigan)
- Traci Parker (University of California, Davis)
- Mix Mann (University of Michigan), moderator
1:00-2:30 pm: Roundtable II: Histories of Childhood and Family
- Paula Austin (Boston University)
- Robin Bernstein (Harvard University)
- LaKisha Michelle Simmons (University of Michigan)
- Eshe Sherley (Wake Forest University), moderator
3:00-4:30 pm: Roundtable III: African American and African Diaspora History
- Briana Royster (University of Alabama)
- Ula Y. Taylor (University of California, Berkeley)
- Ava Purkiss (University of Michigan), moderator
4:30-5:00 pm: Closing Remarks
- Michele Mitchell (New York University)
Co-sponsors: CEW+ Frances and Sydney Lewis Visiting Leaders Fund, the College of Literature Science and the Arts, the Department of History, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Office in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, the Institute for the Humanities, the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, and the University of Michigan Office of Research.
