Louis Chude-Sokei Delivers Fall Lecture in Criticism
November 7, the Center welcomed Professor of English and Director of African American & Black Diaspora Studies Program Louis Chude-Sokei as the speaker for its fall Lecture in Criticism. His books include the award-winning, The Last Darky: Bert Williams, Black on Black Minstrelsy, and the African Diaspora (2005), The Sound of Culture: Diaspora and Black Technopoetics (2015) and the acclaimed memoir, Floating in A Most Peculiar Way (2021).
Chude-Sokei’s talk, “On the Pleasures and Perils of Personhood: Slavery and the Making of Artificial Life” investigated the relationship between personhood, the racialization of machines, and patent offices from the nineteenth century to the present day, drawing parallels between questions surrounding the legal personhod of enslaved peoples and generative AI.
Learn more about the lecture and Professor Chude-Sokei here.