2025 Juneteenth Lecture Series and Dialogue Mixers

This June 16-18th, in celebration of Juneteenth, Dr. Danielle Hodge from the College of Media, Communication and Information, will de delivering a lecture series entitled, "And we are STILL not saved: On Love, Freedom and Salvation." Each of these lectures invoke African American legal scholar Derrick Bell’s seminal contribution, And We Are Not Saved: The Elusive Quest for Racial Justice, by situating love, freedom, and salvation as perpetually evasive though necessary in our struggle for liberation. 

Monday, June 16th: The Elusive Quest for Love 

The Elusive Quest for Love, rejects the way love, when emptied of its revolutionary potential, is often carelessly touted as a panacea and invites us to reconsider what love is when grounded in African American intellectual traditions. Looking to James Baldwin’s demand to risk loving, June Jordan’s critical inquiry of the location of love, and bell hooks’ articulation of love as sustained commitment, this lecture journeys through an ancestral lineage to arrive at the conclusion that Maya Angelou articulated so pointedly, love liberates. 

Tuesday, June 17th: The Elusive Quest for Freedom 

The Elusive Quest for Freedom, journeys through Black visions of freedom amidst a society that recycles and repeats visions of captivity, carcerality, and unfreedom. Looking to the Combahee River Collective’s articulation of freedom as an extension of loving Black women, James H. Cone’s understanding of freedom as born in the struggle, and Robin D.G. Kelley’s reflection on freedom dreaming towards liberation, this lecture moves through Black thought to make it plain that, as Langston Hughes said, we want our freedom. 

Wednesday, June 18th: The Elusive Quest for Salvation 

The Elusive Quest for Salvation, a culmination of the lectures on love and freedom, looks to Derrick Bell as a paradigm for creating space ripe for future making. Offering counterstories that question what salvation means, think through different contours of salvation, and explore how we may arrive at salvation, this lecture invites a kind of speculation and imagining that sustains our responsibility to, as the spiritual says, ‘see what the end will be.’

The Monday and Wednesday lectures will be followed by Dialogue Mixers. A dialogue mixer is a semi-structured dialogue experience designed to encourage meaningful conversations with a variety of people in a short amount of time. The goal is to build community, exchange diverse perspectives/experiences, and practice radical listening in a dynamic and engaging environment.

You are welcome to join us for any or all of these events by completing this registration form.