Difficult Dialogues
In 2021 and 2022, the Center for Gender, Race, and Area Studies hosted Clark’s Difficult Dialogues series. The series, led by Jie Park and Eric DeMeulenaere, provided a space for the campus to explore all sides of current, often divisive, topics through face-to-face conversations.
Topics
Racial Microaggressions, Macro-Impact, Intervening, and Interrupting and Care and Healing, 2021
The series aimed to create a space for inter- and intra-group engagement on the intersecting issues of race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, nationality, and other locations of inequity on Clark’s campus and beyond. It offered a sustainable and generative space where differently-positioned community members can ask questions and engage in dialogue with integrity, care, and reflexivity. The series received support from the President’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Fund.
Relationships Across Difference, 2022
The Center for Gender, Race, and Area Studies hosted a four-part Difficult Dialogue series led by student facilitators that covered topics including: “How do we create meaningful relationships across difference?” The series was organized in conjunction with an academic course, CRES 230 – Difficult Dialogues on Race and Racism, that brought students together to develop as leaders and facilitators of on-going and much needed dialogues on race and racism at Clark University.
