The Department of African American Studies will present the second annual Ted Rose Lecture Series, with a talk on “The Power of Black Lives Matter: American Liberalism and Inequality After George Floyd” on Thursday, March 3, 2022 from 6 to 7:30 p.m.

“Dr. Vattel ‘Ted’ Rose was Associate Professor of African American Studies from 1978 to the early 2000s. As department chair, he helped build a legacy of excellence that still resonates today.” Dr Bayyinah Jeffries, associate professor and department head, said. “During her tenure at Ohio University, Rose led the department for almost two decades and ensured its continuity long after her retirement. Therefore, we are inaugurating a series of annual conferences in his honor. ”

The annual lecture series is an opportunity to introduce and recognize nationally and internationally recognized scholars in or closely related to the discipline of African American Studies. These lectures provide the Ohio University community with speakers who have contributed to the in-depth examination and understanding of African and African American life, history, and culture.

Co-sponsors of this year’s series in partnership with African American Studies include the Division of Diversity and Inclusion, the Departments of History and Political Science, and the National Association for the Advancement of People of Color. (NAACP).

A second speaker will be announced in the future.

March 3: The Power of Black Lives Matter: American Liberalism and Inequalities after George Floyd

Dr Cédric Johnson will speak on March 3 of “The Power of Black Lives Matter: American Liberalism and Inequality After George Floyd”. The event will take place online through Teams or Zoom.

Johnson is Associate Professor of African American Studies and Political Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He got his doctorate. and a master’s degree in government and politics from the University of Maryland-College Park and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Southern University, Baton Rouge.

Johnson’s research interests include racial and ethnic politics, African-American political thought, neoliberalization, political economy, urban politics, and critical urban theory. He was editor-in-chief of “The Neoliberal Flood: Hurricane Katrina, Late Capitalism and the Redesign of New Orleans ”, and is the author of “From Revolutionaries to Racial Leaders: Black Power and the Making of African-American Politics. “He has also published several articles including” James Boggs, the Outsiders “and the” Challenge of Postindustrial Society “in Souls, “Urban precariat, neoliberalization and the soft power of humanitarian design” in the Journal of Developing Societies, and “Beyond the barricades: class interests and really existing black life” in the Cultural Research Journal.

Johnson received the WEB DuBois Outstanding Book Award from the National Conference of Black Political Scientists for his work in 2008. He is currently working on a monograph tentatively titled “The police and the class struggle. “This book examines” the contemporary police crisis in the United States and reframes the origins and motive of modern policing within emerging property regimes and the new class contradictions produced by the birth of the post-consumer society. Moreover, this work seeks to reorient the terms of the debate from the main anti-racist objective of the analyzes and slogans of Black Lives Matter and New Jim Crow towards the empirical reality of the surplus population, those which have been made obsolete by the technology-intensive production, global capital mobility and urban neoliberalization, ”Johnson said.