Meet the Bildner Visiting Scholar, Donavan L. Ramon

 

Allen and Joan Bildner Visiting Scholar, Fall 2023   We are delighted to introduce Donavan L. Ramon (Ph.D, Rutgers University), an assistant professor of English at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville with a specialty in African American literature and narratives of racial passing. He has published articles on Philip Roth, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, and Nella Larsen, and his first book, Striking Features: Psychoanalysis and Racial Passing Narratives (Mercer University Press), is forthcoming in spring 2024. At Rutgers, Ramon gave a faculty seminar, "Who's Passing for Whom? African Americans, Jews, and the Shifting Color Line," will teach a virtual mini-course for the public (see below), and is co-organizing a symposium, "Black Americans, Jewish Americans: Historical Intersections, Collisions, and Passings," for March 2024.     Three-Part Online Mini-Course Racial Passing: Efforts to Belong and Assimilate in the United States Wednesdays, Nov. 29, Dec. 6 & 13 From the moment the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, they were interested not only in who belonged in the United States, but also in who did not. This mini-course will explore African American and Jewish literary texts that engage issues of racial passing and belonging in the United States. Free and open to the public. Registration required.   Register Here       Donate Now   Thank you for your support!   Your gift enables us to make a meaningful impact in the community, fostering engagement with Jewish identity, culture, and history.