Axinn Center for the Humanities inaugural lecture by Emily Bernard: “Black is the Body: Writing about Race in America"

The Axinn Center for the Humanities presents its inaugural lecture by Emily Bernard: “Black is the Body: Writing about Race in America”

Racial identity is a construction. But just because it is a fiction does not make it untrue. In this talk, Emily Bernard  discusses the complex and central role of storytelling as a source of power, meaning, and beauty in her life as a writer, reader, and scholar of African American experience.

Emily Bernard is the Julian Lindsay Green and Gold Professor of English at the University of Vermont.  In addition to Black is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother’s Time, My Mother’s Time, and Mine, her books include Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten, Some of My Best Friends: Writings on Interracial Friendships, and Michelle Obama: The First Lady in Photographs.