The Center for Culture and History of Black Diaspora is pleased to announce the theme of 2002-2003 year long colloquium which will explore the hidden and explicit ways racial ideology is inscribed in the performative practices of architecture. The colloquium will explores the relationship between architecture and race and map out the vexed and often unspoken ways in which notions of race and identity are inscribed in the discourse of architecture and architectural practices as well as in shaping the built environment.

During the 2002–2003 academic year, the Center for Culture and History Black Diaspora plans to engage faculty, students and staff and the broader community at large in exploring the ways in which architecture intersects with racial discourse in the contemporary world. The Center will bring scholars of diverse academic backgrounds whose scholarly work and architectural practices problematizes the intersections between architecture and race. Since architecture is considered to be an autonomous and privileged discourse and practice, the colloquium will provide venues for critical questions: Does the discourse and the practice of architecture serve to evoke or reinforce hidden signs of racialization and cultural hegemony? In what ways do notions of difference figure into the discourse of architectural practice and the construction of the built environment? How are the languages and practices of architecture implicated in the discourse of race? Whose identities find lasting architectural expressions?

For more information contact Fassil Demissie: fdemissi@depaul.edu

All events are free