Bernard L. Brock Memorial Lecture: Confronting America's Racial Paradox
Guest lecturer Dr. Kirt Wilson is Director of Graduate Studies and Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Political Communication in the Communication Arts and Sciences Department at Pennsylvania State University. He has been published widely in the areas of African American public discourse, civil rights rhetoric, collective memory and US presidential communication.
During this presentation, Dr. Wilson will discuss how the majority of Americans seem to oppose either grassroots or government action to combat persistent racial injustice. Dr. Wilson will explore this tension by analyzing two forms of public discourse-- the public conflict between President Donald Trump and protesting NFL players and the cultural rhetoric of mainstream film. Dr. Wilson shows how dramatic scenes in movies like The Help (2011), Selma (2014), and Loving (2016) shape our "memory" of civil rights protest as brave political action.