Michele Norris

Study Group: Eavesdropping on America’s Hidden Conversation about Race

This session is part of the five-week study group series, How Shifts in Race and Cultural Identity Influence Politics, Policy and Pop Culture, led by Michele Norris. Seminars are for Harvard students only (graduate and undergraduate), and are not-for-credit. Please register below to reserve your space.

Description: The Race Card Project has archived tens of thousands of individual stories about race and cultural identity. The stories have poured in from all 50 states and more than 60 countries around the world. They come from large cities and tiny hamlets and take the conversation about race into geographic spaces that do not often appear in the headlines. Public discussions about race tend to focus on seismic events — elections, quotas, demonstrations, friction with law enforcement, debates over immigration— yet the narratives in The Race Card Project often reflect more personal experiences: childbirth, college, family gatherings, encounters at the mall, filling out an application or census form. How can this archive provide a better understanding of the lived experience of race in America? Does the database provide an opportunity to study race and cultural identity in new ways? How is “race” experienced in other cultures?

Time: Monday, February 23, 2015 – 6:00-7:30 p.m.

Location: Harvard Kennedy School, Taubman Building Room 102, Women and Public Policy Program Cason Conference Room

Suggested Reading and Audio