Forum: Culture at Large 2018 with Robin Kelley

At the 2018 annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, the Society for Anthropology's signature Culture at Large session honored the work of historian Robin D. G. Kelley and its impact on contemporary anthropology. The vibrant discussion highlighted imagination as an anthropological project, underscored the urgency of politically engaged scholarship, and explored key debates around Afro-pessimist thought.

This forum provides a record of the electrifying conversation between Kelley, Savannah Shange (Tulane University), John Jackson, Jr. (University of Pennsylvania), and Gary Wilder (City University of New York), and extends it in new directions with supplementary resources and commentaries by early-career scholars from the SCA and the Association of Black Anthropologists.

Posts in This Series

Recording: Culture at Large 2018 with Robin Kelley

Recording: Culture at Large 2018 with Robin Kelley

This recording of the 2018 Culture at Large session presents the entirety of the discussion between Kelley, the three discussants, and the audience. At times, a... More

A Reading List for Revolution: Works Cited in Culture at Large 2018

A Reading List for Revolution: Works Cited in Culture at Large 2018

A Partial List of Works by Robin D. G. Kelley 1990. Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolin... More

Bending the Arc

Bending the Arc

I struggle to find anything to say about the 2018 Culture at Large session that isn’t superfluous. Really, if you’re reading this, you should stop and go listen... More

Anthropology of/as Revolutionary Dreaming

Anthropology of/as Revolutionary Dreaming

Dreams are not external to politics, affirmed Robin D. G. Kelley at the 2018 Culture at Large session. Rather, dreams constitute urgent political action in stru... More

A Kelleyan Approach to Anthropology

A Kelleyan Approach to Anthropology

I didn’t know much about the session that promised to honor the intellectual work and interdisciplinary contributions of the historian Robin D. G. Kelley, but g... More

Resources for Resistance: An Interview with Robin Kelley

Resources for Resistance: An Interview with Robin Kelley

Tracie Canada, Juliana Friend, and Sydney Pullen: How might education function as “counterspell,” in Jackie Wang’s (2018, 316) sense? Robin Kelley: Wang uses th... More