As CLASS’s Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, the program has also rolled out a new initiative examining masculinity. In keeping with this area of study, renowned scholar Dr. Mark Anthony Neal will be delivering the 2016 John P. McGovern Endowed Lecture in Family, Health, and Human Values.
Dr. Neal is a professor of African & African American Studies and the founding director of the Center for Arts, Digital Culture and Entrepreneurship (CADCE) at Duke University. His discussion topic for the McGovern Lecture is Black Masculinities in American Culture.
“Dr. Neal is a dynamic speaker whose cultural studies scholarship will appeal to broad audiences throughout CLASS, our campus community, and greater Houston, as he can readily speak to issues of masculinity and sport, gender, race, and mental and physical health through the lens of culture studies,” says Dr. Rachel Afi Quinn, assistant professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies.
He is the author of numerous books including What the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture (1999) and more recently Looking for Leroy: Illegible Black Masculinities (2013). In addition, he offers courses at Duke on Black Masculinity, Popular Culture, and Digital Humanities, including signature courses on Michael Jackson & the Black Performance Tradition, and The History of Hip-Hop, which he co-teaches with Grammy Award Winning producer 9th Wonder (Patrick Douthit).
Dr. Neal is also co-editor of That's the Joint: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader (Routledge), that is now in its second edition, and he is host of the video webcast Left of Black, produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke. Dr. Neal’s interdisciplinary feminist scholarship spans the fields of African-American, Cultural, and Gender Studies engaging with literary theory, urban sociology, social history, postmodern philosophy, Queer theory and black popular culture, in particular music, television, film, and literature.
The event’s coordinators hope that Dr. Neal’s lecture at UH will encourage a larger campus dialogue around gender, race, culture, family, and human values. Says Dr. Quinn, “Within WGSS we have begun elevating the theme of masculinities and sport because of our own awareness of the changing campus climate as we increasingly celebrate the success of our sports teams and student athletes.”
The John P. McGovern Endowment was established in 1999 and supports the John P. McGovern Annual Award Lectureship in Family, Health, and Human Values in CLASS at UH. The series focuses on speakers with notable expertise in the area of family, health and human values. Each speaker is presented with the John P. McGovern Award Medallion.
The 2016 McGovern Lecture, arranged and hosted by the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program, is a collaborative effort with university partners, including the Center for Diversity and Inclusion, to present a week of events exploring masculinity.
At a glance:
WHAT: John P. McGovern Endowed Lecture
Keynote speaker: Mark Anthony Neal, PhD
“The Devil Wanna Put Me in A Bow-Tie: Negotiating Black Masculinity in America”
WHEN: Thursday, October 27
Reception: 5:30 – 6:30 p.m.
Lecture: 6:30 – 8 p.m.
WHO: Free and open to the public
WHERE: University of Houston
University Center Theater (Rm 103/203)
Entrance One off Calhoun Road.
Parking is available in Lot 1E