T219.
Racially-Conscious Literary Criticism
Thursday, March 24, 2022
3:20 pm to 4:35 pm
Just as astute fiction writers build their racial awareness to portray racial realities outside their own, discerning literary critics can develop such awareness to review books with unfamiliar racial experience. How can critics deepen understanding of an author’s racially informed artistic tradition? Should critics seek editorial guidance to identify potential racial blind spots? This diverse panel brings together critics and creative writers to explore these and other questions.
Participants
Erik Gleibermann is a San Francisco social justice journalist, memoirist, and poet. He has written for the Atlantic, New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, Black Scholar, and World Literature Today, where he is contributing editor. He recently completed Jewfro American: An Interracial Memoir.
Emily Bernard is the author of Black Is the Body, winner of the Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose. She is a 2020 Andrew Carnegie Fellow and the Julian Lindsay Green and Gold Professor of English at the University of Vermont.
David Mura is the author of the memoirs Turning Japanese and Where the Body Meets Memory; the novel Famous Suicides of the Japanese Empire; and four poetry books, including The Last Incantations. His latest book is A Stranger's Journey: Race, Identity & Narrative Craft in Writing. He teaches at the Loft and VONA Writers’ Conference.
