Greg Jenner, comedian Desiree Burch and Prof Shana L. Redmond from Columbia University discuss the astonishing life and legacy of Paul Robeson: the epitome of the American Renaissance man. Famous for his unparalleled bass-baritone voice and relentless struggle for civil rights, Robeson was an exceptional athlete, actor, singer, scholar and civil rights activist who the American government persecuted during the McCarthy era.

Eric Foner and Mae Ngai were in virtual conversation about her book The Chinese Question, live at the New York Public Library on Oct. 13. The historian Mae Ngai explores the intertwined 19th-century stories of the Chinese diaspora, an emerging global economy, and the rise of enduring anti-Chinese racism.

“Making Allies and Affines: Rethinking Racialization” A talk by Elda Tsou, St. John’s University, as a part of CSER’s MA Program in American Studies. Elda Tsou is an associate professor in the English department at St. John’s University. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Studies of race have predominantly approached it as a mode of power that produces racial categories to justify exploitation, inequality, subordination and conquest. Recently though scholars have begun to explore how race-making can also involve processes and practices of “inclusion.” This essay uses the Asian American subject, often represented as an “honorary white” to explore an unfamiliar modality of race-making its author calls “a politics of proximity.” In two different historical examples, the paper examines their formal similarity to explore how these Asian American subjects are racialized by claims of affinity rather than difference and alterity.

University Life has many opportunities and events coming up including President Bollinger’s 20th Annual Fun Run, Time Management Workshop, and more.

Amanda Ong was awarded second prize in the 2021 Bristol Short Story Prize for her story, Sifters.

Literary agent, Irene Baldoni who was on this year’s judging panel, says: “Sifters is literature in action – a touching, heartfelt act of memory and care, in this case even before someone we love has left us forever. The narrator knows that words cannot, ultimately, enclose a human existence in its wholeness and uniqueness. And yet they keep writing, gracefully, committing to paper one memory after the other, and we cannot but keep reading, thus becoming part of this attempt to defeat time.”

Announcing the launch of a compelling new digital project in historical geography involving a number of Columbia faculty including CSER’s director Mae Ngai!

The interactive map visualizes Manhattan’s and Brooklyn’s transformations during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Drawing on 1850, 1880, and 1910 census data, it shows how migration, residential, and occupational patterns shaped the city.

This Indigenous Peoples’ Day, we’ve gathered Columbia students, faculty, and staff to reflect on the indigenous history of the land on which the University sits, the activism of Native Americans on Columbia’s campuses, and the indigenous scholarship that takes place on campus.

“My existence as an indigenous person is dedicated to furthering an understanding of our history, our culture, and our struggles in the present,” says Audra Simpson, Professor of Anthropology at Columbia. “It is my entire body of research, it is my future research, my teaching, and my pedagogy. So, it is not just one day for me. It is my life.”

In Manhattan, Columbia University sits on the ancestral land of the Lenni-Lenape and Wappinger people.

We are very glad that Columbia now celebrates Indigenous Peoples’ Day. The University has followed the appeal of Native American students and numerous other students, faculty and staff over the years asking for this Day to be honored. The celebration of the Day is a clear trend among various other universities as well as cities and states in this country.

The Institute for the Study of Human Rights and the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race are now accepting applications for the 2022 International Summer Program on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and Policy (ISSP). The deadline for submitting applications is October 31, 2021.

In her latest & timely book, The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global Politics (W.W. Norton, 2021), Mae Ngai delves into the 19th-century Chinese migration to Anglo-American countries and finds out how those early experiences might explain the racism we see today.