Podcast appearances and mentions of michele elam

Michele Elam, the William Robertson Coe Professor of Humanities in the English Department at Stanford University and a Race and Technology Affiliate at the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, joins Behind the Tech to discuss her journey and work. Michele shares her unique path from a humanities background to engaging with technology and AI, influenced by her father's career as an astronautics engineer.  In this episode, Michele and Kevin explore the intersection of humanities and technology, discussing the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and the ethical considerations of AI. They delve into Michele's work at the Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence at Stanford, where she represents arts and diversity perspectives. The conversation also touches on the cultural status of arts versus technology, the impact of storytelling in shaping cultural imagination, and the evolving education of engineering students to include social and ethical questions.   Kevin and Michele reflect on the balance between deep expertise and broad curiosity, the role of arts in technology, and the importance of integrating different perspectives to address complex societal issues. They also discuss the significance of tradition and innovation, drawing insights from Kevin's recent trip to Japan where he observed the coexistence of advanced technology and centuries-old crafts.  Michele Elam  Kevin Scott    Behind the Tech with Kevin Scott    Discover and listen to other Microsoft podcasts.    

Using Lisa Guerrero's 2009 article “Can the Subaltern Shop? The Commodification of Difference in the Bratz Dolls” as a framework, Carrie and Ellie discuss MGA Entertainment's introduction of the Bratz line in 2001 and the alternative vision of femininity and style it offered young girls in the new millennium. Guerrero explores four spaces of critical inquiry: the Bratz' paradoxical investment in racial identities, gender and sexuality politics, the influence of consumerism/commodity culture, and the "street cred" culture that provided white suburban girls a "tourist opportunity of the urban imaginary space." The sisters also contextualize the Bratz line within the y2k emphasis on multiculturalism and the specious understanding of America as a "post-racial society" in the late 20th century. Other topics include the McBling aesthetic, the "browning of America," and (as always) neoliberal postfeminism. Works cited include Danzy Senna's 1998 piece "Mulatto Millennium," Michele Elam's 2011 work The Souls of Mixed Folk: Race, Politics, and Aesthetics in the New Millennium, Molly Rosner's Playing with History: American Identities and Children's Consumer Culture (2021), Walter Johnson's 1996 article “The Strange Story of Alexina Morrison: Race, Sex, and Resistance in Antebellum Louisiana” as well as his 1999 book Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market, and (just barely!) Jill Lepore's 2018 piece in the New Yorker, "Valley of the Dolls: Barbie, Bratz, and the end of originality." Passing narrative films Carrie mentioned were Showboat (1936, 1951), Pinky (1949), and Imitation of Life (1934, 1959).

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/bi-racial-identities. Many people identify strongly with the ethnic or racial group to which they belong – as Jews, or African-Americans, or Latinos. But to which groups does a person truly belong? President Obama has a white mother from Kansas and an African father from Kenya. Why is he seen as our first African-American President, rather than our forty-fourth white president? How does racial identity work? Is such identification a positive or a negative factor in a person's life? Must we choose among our potential identities? Ken and John discuss racial and bi-racial identity with Michele Elam from Stanford University, author of "Mixed Race in the New Millennium."

“What are you?” The question can often comes out of nowhere One can be going about her quotidian activities, or she might have just finished a meeting at work. “What are you?” The question is disorienting for most, but for others who are racially ambiguous it is commonplace. The ostensibly benign question suggests that it is about the person being asked. However, one might argue that it is more about the one who does the asking. In The Souls of Mixed Folk: Race, Politics, and Aesthetics in the New Millenium (Stanford University Press, 2011), Michele Elam critically discusses the rise of the Mixed Race Studies. To demonstrate the new sub-genre of cultural studies in both art and academia Elam shows elements of what mixed-racedness looks like in the classroom, as well as in the public sphere here at the turn of the 21st century. One of the contributions of Elam’s Souls makes to Mixed Race Studies is her careful outline of the ways people of mixed biological ancestry have historically worked for the goal of social justice for all oppressed groups; moreover, she shows how those who look at mixed-racedness critically continue to do so. This, despite the trajectory in which some of mixed-race advocates are moving: people of mixed-race backgrounds are a separate group with separate issues, and most importantly, being both black and white–and that is most often the only definition many use of being “mixed”–their experience falls outside the purview of race studies. This notion of being separate and outside is often used to justify a view of race that essentially reifies notions of identity as being defined by blood percentage–a point of view that takes us back, not forward. While those who critically study mixed- raceness see that one’s movement through a society that continues to ask What are you? can result in alternate experiences, many show that the difference can work in a way to help all understand racial oppression. Dr. Michele Elam, Martin Luther King, Jr. Centennial Professor in the English Department at Stanford University, falls within the latter group. And, so do Lezley Saar, Danzy Senna, Philip Roth, Aaron McGruder, and Dave Chappelle, to name but a few. A mixed bag, for sure, Elam examines relevant works of the aforementioned artists as she considers the way in which they challenge what is quickly becoming conventional thought on mixed-racedness from the academic classroom to the public sphere. Whether one is fascinated with her critical reading of K-12 textbooks focused on mixed race curriculum or with her reading of artist Lezley Saar’s “Baby Halfie Brown Head”; with her insightful readings of Aaron McGruder’s Boondocks comic strips and/or the unforgettable episode “The Racial Draft” from The Dave Chappelle Show; whether one is interested in the ways that author Colson Whitehead and playwright Carl Hancock Rux ask their audiences to think critically about mixed-racedness in the 21st century one thing is clear: Elam first highlights and subsequently knocks down the notion that “fetishizing the box” of the racial categories on census forms or outlining one’s mixed family tree represents progression towards a most just society in the US. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“What are you?” The question can often comes out of nowhere One can be going about her quotidian activities, or she might have just finished a meeting at work. “What are you?” The question is disorienting for most, but for others who are racially ambiguous it is commonplace. The ostensibly benign question suggests that it is about the person being asked. However, one might argue that it is more about the one who does the asking. In The Souls of Mixed Folk: Race, Politics, and Aesthetics in the New Millenium (Stanford University Press, 2011), Michele Elam critically discusses the rise of the Mixed Race Studies. To demonstrate the new sub-genre of cultural studies in both art and academia Elam shows elements of what mixed-racedness looks like in the classroom, as well as in the public sphere here at the turn of the 21st century. One of the contributions of Elam’s Souls makes to Mixed Race Studies is her careful outline of the ways people of mixed biological ancestry have historically worked for the goal of social justice for all oppressed groups; moreover, she shows how those who look at mixed-racedness critically continue to do so. This, despite the trajectory in which some of mixed-race advocates are moving: people of mixed-race backgrounds are a separate group with separate issues, and most importantly, being both black and white–and that is most often the only definition many use of being “mixed”–their experience falls outside the purview of race studies. This notion of being separate and outside is often used to justify a view of race that essentially reifies notions of identity as being defined by blood percentage–a point of view that takes us back, not forward. While those who critically study mixed- raceness see that one’s movement through a society that continues to ask What are you? can result in alternate experiences, many show that the difference can work in a way to help all understand racial oppression. Dr. Michele Elam, Martin Luther King, Jr. Centennial Professor in the English Department at Stanford University, falls within the latter group. And, so do Lezley Saar, Danzy Senna, Philip Roth, Aaron McGruder, and Dave Chappelle, to name but a few. A mixed bag, for sure, Elam examines relevant works of the aforementioned artists as she considers the way in which they challenge what is quickly becoming conventional thought on mixed-racedness from the academic classroom to the public sphere. Whether one is fascinated with her critical reading of K-12 textbooks focused on mixed race curriculum or with her reading of artist Lezley Saar’s “Baby Halfie Brown Head”; with her insightful readings of Aaron McGruder’s Boondocks comic strips and/or the unforgettable episode “The Racial Draft” from The Dave Chappelle Show; whether one is interested in the ways that author Colson Whitehead and playwright Carl Hancock Rux ask their audiences to think critically about mixed-racedness in the 21st century one thing is clear: Elam first highlights and subsequently knocks down the notion that “fetishizing the box” of the racial categories on census forms or outlining one’s mixed family tree represents progression towards a most just society in the US. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“What are you?” The question can often comes out of nowhere One can be going about her quotidian activities, or she might have just finished a meeting at work. “What are you?” The question is disorienting for most, but for others who are racially ambiguous it is commonplace. The ostensibly benign question suggests that it is about the person being asked. However, one might argue that it is more about the one who does the asking. In The Souls of Mixed Folk: Race, Politics, and Aesthetics in the New Millenium (Stanford University Press, 2011), Michele Elam critically discusses the rise of the Mixed Race Studies. To demonstrate the new sub-genre of cultural studies in both art and academia Elam shows elements of what mixed-racedness looks like in the classroom, as well as in the public sphere here at the turn of the 21st century. One of the contributions of Elam's Souls makes to Mixed Race Studies is her careful outline of the ways people of mixed biological ancestry have historically worked for the goal of social justice for all oppressed groups; moreover, she shows how those who look at mixed-racedness critically continue to do so. This, despite the trajectory in which some of mixed-race advocates are moving: people of mixed-race backgrounds are a separate group with separate issues, and most importantly, being both black and white–and that is most often the only definition many use of being “mixed”–their experience falls outside the purview of race studies. This notion of being separate and outside is often used to justify a view of race that essentially reifies notions of identity as being defined by blood percentage–a point of view that takes us back, not forward. While those who critically study mixed- raceness see that one's movement through a society that continues to ask What are you? can result in alternate experiences, many show that the difference can work in a way to help all understand racial oppression. Dr. Michele Elam, Martin Luther King, Jr. Centennial Professor in the English Department at Stanford University, falls within the latter group. And, so do Lezley Saar, Danzy Senna, Philip Roth, Aaron McGruder, and Dave Chappelle, to name but a few. A mixed bag, for sure, Elam examines relevant works of the aforementioned artists as she considers the way in which they challenge what is quickly becoming conventional thought on mixed-racedness from the academic classroom to the public sphere. Whether one is fascinated with her critical reading of K-12 textbooks focused on mixed race curriculum or with her reading of artist Lezley Saar's “Baby Halfie Brown Head”; with her insightful readings of Aaron McGruder's Boondocks comic strips and/or the unforgettable episode “The Racial Draft” from The Dave Chappelle Show; whether one is interested in the ways that author Colson Whitehead and playwright Carl Hancock Rux ask their audiences to think critically about mixed-racedness in the 21st century one thing is clear: Elam first highlights and subsequently knocks down the notion that “fetishizing the box” of the racial categories on census forms or outlining one's mixed family tree represents progression towards a most just society in the US. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

Michele Elam addresses where is- or should be- the place of race, gender, and other charged topics in higher education. Elam discusses the profound anxiety in teaching these "unspeakables" and what teachers can do about it. (February 16, 2012)

In her most recent publication, "The Souls of Mixed Folk: Race, Politics, and Aesthetics in the New Millennium," Michele Elam examines how representations of mixed race in literature and the arts are redefining new millennial aesthetics. (April 15, 2011)

Lecture on Dunbar’s writing for and about children by Michele Elam followed by performance by Stanford students of Dunbar’s poems about and for children directed by Harry Elam and assistant director Jo-Issa Diop. (March 10, 2006)

(March 10, 2006) Lecture on Dunbar’s writing for and about children by Michele Elam followed by performance by Stanford students of Dunbar’s poems about and for children directed by Harry Elam and assistant director Jo-Issa Diop.