"We Have Worthy Work To Do Anywhere We Are": A Conversation with Janelle Levy & Dr. George Lipsitz

We are joined today by Janelle Olivia Levy, who along with myself, are contributing authors to a wonderful forthcoming special issue entitled “The Enduring Dangers of Essentializing Labor and Laborers” in Kalfou: A Journal of Comparative and Relational Ethnic Studies co-edited by my dear and brilliant colleagues and amistades Dr. Abigail Rosas and Dr. Ana Rosas. Along with Dr. Damien Sojoyner, Janelle Olivia Levy co-authored the essay “The Cost of Freedom: The Violent Exploitation of Black Labor as Essential to Nation Building in Jamaica and the United States of America.” A doctoral student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine, Levy remind us in the essay that “a true commitment to Black life most hold an emancipatory politic divorced from canonizing labor exploitation.” We are also honored to welcome Dr. George Lipsitz. When Danny and I were doctoral students in American Studies, Dr. Lipsitz work and wisdom was foundational in our grounding of the field and how to be in the world. Dr. Lipsitz’s work which includes brilliant and beautiful work such as Footsteps in the Dark: The Hidden Histories of Popular Music, Time Passages: Collective Memory and American Popular Culture, and the urgent The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics to name a few stands as a testament to collectively remember amidst devastation, to make connections when we are demanded to be individuated and to work through difference globally in the beauty of our ancestral practices.

We also invite you to join us on Tuesday, April 13th from 9am-3:30pm for a virtual event that will feature more extensive dialogues about our essays for the special issue and further discuss the under-examined and dangerous erasures and rigors of essentializing laborers and labor across a diversity of contexts, locations, and relationships. It will feature a keynote presentation by our guest today Dr. George Lipsitz and be moderated by Dr. Rosas, associate professor, Chicano/Latino studies and history. We are so grateful for Dr. Abigail Rosas, Dr. Ana Rosas and Dr. George Lipsitz for your collaboration in making today’s episode possible, a testament to the abundant energies of working relationally and comparatively.

https://uci.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_U5EvdmWjR4iCOjgquQHWWA