Derrick R. Spires is Associate Professor of Literatures in English and an affiliate faculty member in American Studies, Visual Studies, and Media Studies. He specializes in early African American and American print culture, citizenship studies, and African American intellectual history. Dr. Spires’ book, ”The Practice of Citizenship: Black Politics and Print Culture in the Early United States” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), traces the parallel development of early Black print culture and legal and cultural understandings of U.S. citizenship. The book won the Modern Language Association Prize for First Book and the Bibliographical Society-St. Louis Mercantile Library Prize, and it was a finalist for the Library Company of Philadelphia’s First Book Award. Dr. Spires’ current book project, ”Serial Blackness: Periodical Literature and Early African American Literary Histories in the Long Nineteenth Century,” takes up serial publication as both the core of early African American literary history and a heuristic for understanding Blackness in the 19th century.
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Defining Democracy
How Black Print Culture Shaped America, Then and Now
Wednesday, December 01, 2021, 5:30pm EST
Event Overview
Observers have described the launch of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2013 as “America’s long overdue awakening to systemic racism.” Yet Black Americans in this country have been raising their voices for over 200 years to confront disenfranchisement, articulating again and again what it means to be a democratic citizen. And they began to put those thoughts in writing well before the Revolutionary War.
Join Cornell University literary historian and author Derrick Spires in this webcast as he challenges the assumption that there was little or no Black print culture in 19th-century America before the Civil War. Using material from Cornell’s own Rare and Manuscript Collections, including the Samuel J. May collection, Dr. Spires will explore the oft-neglected written record of African American intellectual history, New York state activism, and Black material culture. By highlighting these rare print materials, Dr. Spires will demonstrate the vibrancy and centrality of Black print culture — and its importance to understanding citizenship and democracy in America’s 19th century as well as its 21st.
RESOURCES / NEXT STEPS
Cornell Rare Manuscript Collection
Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection
The Practice of Citizenship: Black Politics and Print Culture in the Early US
Join Cornell University literary historian and author Derrick Spires in this webcast as he challenges the assumption that there was little or no Black print culture in 19th-century America before the Civil War. Using material from Cornell’s own Rare and Manuscript Collections, including the Samuel J. May collection, Dr. Spires will explore the oft-neglected written record of African American intellectual history, New York state activism, and Black material culture. By highlighting these rare print materials, Dr. Spires will demonstrate the vibrancy and centrality of Black print culture — and its importance to understanding citizenship and democracy in America’s 19th century as well as its 21st.
RESOURCES / NEXT STEPS
Cornell Rare Manuscript Collection
Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection
The Practice of Citizenship: Black Politics and Print Culture in the Early US
What You'll Learn
- The dynamic reality of 19th-century Black print culture in the United States
- The importance of these documents to understanding African American and U.S. history
- The role of Black print culture in New York state activism
- The histories of Black citizenship, voting rights, and organizing before the Civil War
- The key holdings in Cornell’s Rare and Manuscript Collections
Speaker
Derrick Spires
Associate Professor, The Department of Literatures in English
Cornell College of Arts & Sciences
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Dec01
Add to Calendar 5:30 PM - 7:00 PM EST
2021-12-01 17:302021-12-01 19:00Defining DemocracyAdd to CalendarObservers have described the launch of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2013 as “America’s long overdue awakening to systemic racism.” Yet Black Americans in this country have been raising their voices for over 200 years to confront disenfranchisement, articulating again and again what it means to be a democratic citizen. And they began to put those thoughts in writing well before the Revolutionary War.
Join Cornell University literary historian and author Derrick Spires in this webcast as he challenges the assumption that there was little or no Black print culture in 19th-century America before the Civil War. Using material from Cornell’s own Rare and Manuscript Collections, including the Samuel J. May collection, Dr. Spires will explore the oft-neglected written record of African American intellectual history, New York state activism, and Black material culture. By highlighting these rare print materials, Dr. Spires will demonstrate the vibrancy and centrality of Black print culture — and its importance to understanding citizenship and democracy in America’s 19th century as well as its 21st.
RESOURCES / NEXT STEPS
Cornell Rare Manuscript Collection
Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection
The Practice of Citizenship: Black Politics and Print Culture in the Early UShttps://ecornell.cornell.edu/keynotes/view/K120121/primaryAmerica/New_YorkeCornell
Join Cornell University literary historian and author Derrick Spires in this webcast as he challenges the assumption that there was little or no Black print culture in 19th-century America before the Civil War. Using material from Cornell’s own Rare and Manuscript Collections, including the Samuel J. May collection, Dr. Spires will explore the oft-neglected written record of African American intellectual history, New York state activism, and Black material culture. By highlighting these rare print materials, Dr. Spires will demonstrate the vibrancy and centrality of Black print culture — and its importance to understanding citizenship and democracy in America’s 19th century as well as its 21st.
RESOURCES / NEXT STEPS
Cornell Rare Manuscript Collection
Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection
The Practice of Citizenship: Black Politics and Print Culture in the Early UShttps://ecornell.cornell.edu/keynotes/view/K120121/primaryAmerica/New_YorkeCornell
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