Poet Amiri Baraka’s writing often served as social criticism and drew attention to the systemic oppression of Black Americans. As part of a semester-long residency as M.H. Abrams Distinguished Visiting Professor, poet and theorist Fred Moten will deliver a lecture on radical Black politics and the poetry of Baraka on Thursday, March 31 at 5 p.m. in the Kaufmann Auditorium in Goldwin Smith Hall. Moten’s talk, “Nothing In the Way of Things,” will focus on Baraka’s poem “Something in the Way of Things (In Town)“; the Abrams lecture is presented by the Department of Literatures in English in the College of Arts & Sciences.
Fred Moten
In a 2017 interview with The Brooklyn Rail, Moten, professor of performance studies and comparative literature at New York University, said that “Baraka was at the convergence of all these things that I had been interested in: music, experimental literature, radical black politics, philosophy and literary theory – he was there for all of it, so he was the model for me.”
The March 31 lecture will be open to in-person attendance for members of the Cornell community (with Cornell ID). Anyone can livestream the lecture. Attendance guidelines are subject to change; visit english.cornell.edu/english-events for current guidelines and more information.
Amanda Brockner is MFA Graduate Program Coordinator in the Department of Literatures in English.
