Community Conversation: Racism, the (Un)Making of Dallas, and Repairing the Damage with Dr. Michael Phillips
March 22 @ 10:00 am - 12:00 pm CDT
Presented in partnership with the SMU Department of Human-Centered Interdisciplinary Studies, Community Conversations provide a forum for local discussion of relevant contemporary topics in the larger literary dialogue. Each conversation will feature a guest scholar who will facilitate the conversation, as well as contextual readings available prior to the event.
For its inaugural conversation, the series is focusing on Dallas itself, how racism has influenced the development of the city, and how we move forward together to build a more connected, equitable future. Guest scholar Dr. Michael Phillips will lead the conversation, and Dallas Poet Laureate Mag Gabbert has selected a set of poems to supplement.
Natasha Trethewey: “History Lesson”
Roger Reeves: “Cymothoa Exigua”
Claudia Rankine: Citizen: “You are in the dark, in the car…”
Terrance Hayes: “American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin [Probably twilight makes blackness dangerous]”
Marilyn Nelson: “Arachis Hypogaea”
Dr. Michael Phillips is a scholar of American race relations, Texas history, right-wing politics, and apocalyptic religions. His dissertation at the University of Texas was published in 2006 as White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity and Religion in Dallas, 1841-2001. White Metropolis was awarded the 2007 Texas Historical Commission’s prize for best book on Texas history. His next book, co-authored with longtime journalist Betsy Friauf, is The Purifying Knife: The Troubling History of Eugenics in Texas. It will be published by the University of Oklahoma Press June 3, 2025.