The Politics of Racial Representation - 2 pm

Who do we see, what perspectives do we hear, and why does that matter? Whether its sports team mascots, victims of police violence, news anchors, or politicians, who's represented and how they're portrayed have far-reaching implications.


This panel features experts on media, politics, and race:
Kevin Blackistone, Carmen Lugo-Lugo, Matthew Hughey, and Janelle Wong

PANELISTS

​Kevin Blackistone is a longtime award-winning national sports columnist now at The Washington Post, a visiting professor at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism and a panelist on ESPN's Around the Horn. He co-authored A Gift for Ron, and contributes at NPR and PBS. He's a Washington, D.C., native, a graduate of Northwestern University and of Boston University, where he was a Martin Luther King Fellow.

​Dr. Matthew W. Hughey is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Connecticut.  Professor Hughey’s research concentrates on (1) white racial identity; (2) racialized organizations; (3) mass media; (4) political engagements; (5) science and technology, and; (6) public advocacy with racism and discrimination.
 
He has published over sixty scholarly articles and seven books, some of which include The White Savior Film: Content, Critics, and Consumption (Temple University Press, 2014), which received the 2016 Outstanding Publication Award from the Southwest Sociological Association and White Bound: Nationalists, Antiracists, and the Shared Meanings of Race (Stanford University Press, 2012), which was co-winner of the Eduardo Bonilla-Silva Outstanding Book Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems in 2014.
 
He has been honored with the 2014 Distinguished Early Career Award from the American Sociological Association’s Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities and the 2016 Mentoring Excellence Award from the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction.  In September of 2016 he was named a Visiting Professor in the Post-Graduate School at the University of the Free State (South Africa) and over 2016-2017 he serves as a Visiting Scholar with the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University.

​CARMEN R. LUGO-LUGO is a professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race Studies at Washington State University.  Her books Project(ing) 9/11: Race, Gender, and Citizenship in recent Hollywood Films (Rowman and Littlefield 2014) and Containing (Un)American Bodies: Race, Sexuality, and Post-9/11 Constructions of Citizenship (Rodopi 2010) were co-authored with Mary K. Bloodsworth-Lugo, and her book Animating Difference:  Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Contemporary Films for Children (Rowman and Littlefield 2010), was co-authored with C. Richard King and Mary K. Bloodsworth-Lugo. Professor Lugo-Lugo also co-edited the collection A New Kind of Containment: “The War on Terror,” Race, and Sexuality (Rodopi 2009) with Mary K. Bloodsworth-Lugo. Dr. Lugo-Lugo has also published numerous articles and book chapters on cultural productions of 9/11, and cultural constructions of race, citizenship, and gender. She is an editor and contributor of the academic blog Mujeres Talk. 

Janelle Wong is a Professor of American Studies and the Director of the Asian American Studies Program. Prior to joining the faculty at the University Maryland in 2012, she was at the University of Southern California in the Departments of Political Science and American Studies and Ethnicity. She also served as Executive Director of the Institute of Public Service at Seattle University (2011-12). Wong is author of Democracy’s Promise: Immigrants and American Civic Institutions (2006, University of Michigan Press) and co-author of two books on Asian American politics. The most recent isAsian American Political Participation: Emerging Constituents and their Political Identities (2011, Russell Sage Foundation), based on the first nationally representative survey of Asian Americans’ political attitudes and behavior. This groundbreaking study of Asian Americans was conducted in eight different languages with six different Asian national origin groups. Wong has received research funding from the Russell Sage Foundation, Irvine Foundation, and Carnegie Foundation. She was a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC, in 2006-2007.
Wong’s research is on race, immigration, and political mobilization. Her current book project focuses on how growing numbers of Asian American and Latino evangelical Christians will impact the traditional conservative Christian movement and immigrant political participation. The study is based on qualitative interviews, participant observation in Los Angeles and Houston, and analysis of survey data. As a scholar and teacher, Wong has worked closely with social service, labor, civil rights, and media organizations that serve the Asian American population.