CSER | Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race

Theorizing Liberation: Third Worldism and the Legacy of Gary Okihiro at CSER

The Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race (CSER) invites you to Theorizing Liberation: Third Worldism and the Legacy of Gary Okihiro at CSER, a panel discussion and conversation in honor of the legacy of CSER’s founding director, Gary Okihiro (1945-2024), who passed away in May of this year.

In addition to his extensive scholarship, our panelists will discuss the histories of CSER and the field of Ethnic Studies more broadly, Gary’s scholarly contributes to Ethnic and Asian American Studies, and the new field of study envisioned by Gary as Third World studies. In doing so, they will be engaging in “a work of imagination,” envisioning possible futures for Ethnic Studies at Columbia and beyond.

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Depicting Difference: Race and Ethnicity in Graphic Design, Illustration, and Comics

Join the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race (CSER) for Depicting Difference: Race and Ethnicity in Graphic Design, Illustration, and Comics. The panel will focus on racial and ethnic identity in graphic design, illustration, and comics, featuring artists and scholars who deal with visual representations of marginalized groups.

Everyone's a Critic: Creative Writers Writing Criticism

The Asian American Diasporic Writers Series at the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race and the CU School of the Arts Writing Program present Everyone’s a Critic: Creative Writers Writing Criticism, a panel discussion featuring authors Marie Myung-Ok Lee (Writer-in-Residence at CSER), Rebecca Morgan Frank, Jonathan Leal, and Rishi Reddi.

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Follow CSER's Instagram Account!

Follow CSER’s new Instagram account (@columbiacser) to stay up to date on our latest events and opportunities.

Statement from CSER's Faculty

April 25, 2024

The Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race (CSER) faculty fully supports Columbia and Barnard students’ rights to free speech and assembly. We unequivocally and unanimously condemn the decision to bring armed riot police onto campus and to impose mass suspensions in response to peaceful student protests.

We urgently advocate for the immediate reinstatement of the Columbia and Barnard students, including restoring their access to academic and extracurricular activities, dining halls, and residences. The university leadership must also swiftly revoke the suspensions and expunge disciplinary sanctions from student records. Additionally, for the safety of everyone on campus, the administration must cease its collaboration with the FBI and the NYPD, end its deployment of private security firms to surveil students and faculty, and begin a dialogue taking students’ demands seriously.

The Center is the only academic unit at Columbia formed in response to student inquiry and activism. The students currently calling for a ceasefire and university divestment carry on that legacy. We demand a university that can sustain real dialogue, without policing, on state violence towards Palestine. The University should be able to engage peacefully with peaceful student protest.

The Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race (CSER) is Columbia’s main interdisciplinary space for the study of ethnicity, race and indigeneity and their implications for thinking about culture, power, hierarchy, social identities, and political communities, in the U.S. and around the world.

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