"The History of White People and What it Means for Now" with Nell Irvin Painter

Please join us for a Zoom talk with Dr. Nell Irvin Painter.

Nell Irvin Painter, Edwards Professor of American History Emerita at Princeton University, will deliver one of this semester’s signature lectures at Middlebury College. Responding to the urgency of confronting this country’s racist past and present, Professor Painter, author of “The History of White People” (2010), will trace the invention of the idea of race and how that invention centered a certain sort of whiteness as superior. In an interview with NBC online news, Dr. Painter described a general movement that “millions of white Americans are waking up to their whiteness and being puzzled by it. For so much of American history, being white, being praised as white has been a large part of our national culture.” In view of the national reckoning with racism in the wake of the demonstrations and grassroot movements against police brutality and other racist practices, Dr. Painter sees a willingness on the part of white people to learn and understand what it means to be raced as white. In her estimation, “we are entering a new phase of American whiteness.”

Read more about Dr. Painter here: http://www.nellpainter.com

ZOOM password = GSFS, link: https://middlebury.zoom.us/j/9976943927?pwd=RERNUVZoY1luNFMxQzZYUTZNdmQ4dz09