In this talk Dr. Rucker-Chang explores the uses and meanings of "Blackness" in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1945-1992) and its successor states of Serbia and Montenegro. To reflect on the mechanisms of cultural and social incorporation of “Blacks” in Yugoslavia, she highlights how, in defiance to Yugoslav narratives of ethnic and racial inclusion, post-Yugoslav identity has adopted a normative ethnic value of  "whiteness" as an inalienable, exclusive feature of belonging.

Sunnie Rucker-Chang is an Assistant Professor of Slavic and East European Studies and Director of European Studies at University of Cincinnati. Her primary interests lie in cultural and racial formation(s) in the Balkans. She is a co-editor of and contributor to the book Chinese Migrants in Russia, Central Asia and Eastern Europe (Routledge, 2011). Her work has appeared in the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Critical Romani Studies, Journal of Transatlantic Studies, and Interventions: The International Journal of Postcolonial Studies. Her co-authored book, Roma Rights and US Civil Rights: A Transatlantic Approach, is currently in press with Cambridge University Press, and her co-edited volume Balkan Migrants: to, from, and in the Balkans: Identity, Alterity, and Culture is under contract with Liverpool University Press. For the 2019-2020 academic year Sunnie will work on her monograph focusing on racial formations and Blackness in Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav space for which she has been awarded an American Association of University Women Postdoctoral Research Leave Fellowship.

Sponsored by the Department of Modern and Classical Languages, Department of African American and Africana Studies, Department of History, International Studies, Department of Anthropology and the College of Arts and Sciences.

A photography exhibit titled “A Visual History of Latino Students at the University of Kentucky, 1865-2019” will be on display at WT Young Library at the University of Kentucky this fall. Curated by University of Kentucky undergraduate student Daniela Gamez Salgado, this collection of archival and contemporary photography presents visual evidence of important firsts in the history of Latino students at the university.  The photos chosen for this exhibit focus on individual student experiences and collective student action, while also celebrating the diversity of experiences and identities encompassed by students of Latin American descent at the university. Commenting on the exhibit, curator Daniela Gamez Salgado states: “As the first official collection of the history of Latino students at the University of Kentucky, this exhibit helps us better understand and analyze the changing needs of this historically underserved community and encourages us all to rethink what it means to be a Wildcat.”

The exhibit will be located in the Rose Street entrance to the WT Young Library and can be viewed during regular library hours between September 16^th and November 1^st, 2019. An online image gallery from the exhibit can be viewed at https://uknowledge.uky.edu/latino_student_history/

In honor of the exhibit, University of Kentucky alum and former Director of the UK Martin Luther King Center Ricardo Nazario y Colón will give a lecture titled “Beyond the Cosmic Race: Latinequis in the United States”. The lecture, with reception to follow, will be held on October 10^th from 4:00pm to 5:30pm at the Gatton Student Center, room 331.

The exhibit, lecture, and reception are sponsored by University of Kentucky Libraries, Department of Hispanic Studies, College of Arts & Sciences Year of Equity Program, UK Martin Luther King Center, and Latino Student Union.

Join us for free food, free t-shirts, and giveaways as we kick off a year that will feature a series of events looking at the history and the future of equity at the University of Kentucky and beyond. Our featured speaker Dr. George C. Wright, Distinguished Visiting Professor of HIstory, will explain why Lyman T. Johnson's successful desegregation lawsuit still matter today, 70 years later. 

“Written and directed by Matthew Brown, The Man Who Knew Infinity is the true story of friendship that forever changed mathematics. In 1913, Srinivasa Ramanujan (Dev Patel), a self-taught Indian mathematics genius, traveled to Trinity College, Cambridge, where over the course of five years, forged a bond with his mentor, the brilliant and eccentric professor, G.H. Hardy (Jeremy Irons), and fought against prejudice to reveal his mathematic genius to the world. The film also stars Devika Bhise, Stephen Fry and Toby Jones. This is Ramanujan’s story as seen through Hardy’s eyes.” – 108 min

Link:  http://www.ms.uky.edu/~movies/