Lynn Mie Itagaki, "Civil Racism: The 1992 Los Angeles Rebellion and the Crisis of Racial Burnout”

Lynn Mie Itagaki is an Assistant Professor in the departments of English and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, as well as the Coordinator of the Asian American Studies Program. Her book Civil Racism: The 1992 Los Angeles Rebellion and the Crisis of Racial Burnout (University of Minnesota, 2016) examines a range of cultural reactions to the 1992 Los Angeles rebellion (also known as the Rodney King riots) anchored by calls for a racist civility, a central component of the aesthetics and politics of the post-civil rights era. Lynn Mie Itagaki argues that the rebellion interrupted the rhetoric of “civil racism,” which she defines as the preservation of civility at the expense of racial equality.

 

Discussants: Dr. Wendy Smooth (Associate Professor, Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, OSU) and Dr. Jeehyun Lim (Assistant Professor, Department of English, Denison University).

 

Reception and books available for purchase via cash or credit card after the talk.

 

Sponsored by the Diversity and Identity Studies Collective at OSU & Asian American Studies.

 

Free and open to the public.