04/17/2024
So excited to have Ruha Benjamin speaking at Grinnell tomorrow!!
Scholar Convocation
Thursday April 18, 2024
11:00 am
JRC 101
Ruha Benjamin
In this talk, Ruha Benjamin draws on the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic and introduces a micro-vision of change—a way of looking at the everyday ways people are working to combat unjust systems and build alternatives to the oppressive status quo. Born of a stubborn hopefulness and grounded in social analysis, Dr. Ruha Benjamin offers a pragmatic and poetic approach to fostering a more just and joyful world. In so doing, she explores how the humanities in action invites us to cultivate a “poetics of living” that entails creative care and attention to how we treat and value one another.
Ruha Benjamin is the Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, founding director of the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab, and author of the award-winning book Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code, among many other publications. Her work investigates the social dimensions of science, medicine, and technology with a focus on the relationship between innovation and inequity, health and justice, knowledge and power. She is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Marguerite Casey Foundation Freedom Scholar Award and the President's Award for Distinguished Teaching at Princeton. Her most recent book, Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want, winner of the 2023 Stowe Prize, was born out of the twin plagues of COVID-19 and police violence and offers a practical and principled approach to transforming our communities and helping us build a more just and joyful world. Ruha’s forthcoming book Imagination: A Manifesto will be released in February 2024.
