Acclaimed poet, scholar, and theorist Fred Moten will deliver this year’s Hayden V. White Distinguished Annual Lecture on Wednesday, April 9, at the Hay Barn on campus. The lecture, titled “Theory and Practice of Contradiction,” will begin at 6 p.m. and is free and open to the public.
In his talk, Moten will explore key theoretical and historical ideas through the lens of a phrase frequently used by the late Cedric Robinson, a professor in the Department of Black Studies and the Department of Political Science at UC Santa Barbara: “We must deepen or, alternatively, we must heighten the contradiction.” He will examine the nature of contradiction, its implications, and what happens when its resolution is rejected. Additionally, he will discuss how contradiction can be transformed from a theoretical concept into real-world practice.
The event is presented by The Humanities Division and The Humanities Institute as part of THI’s 25th-anniversary celebration.
Moten is a professor in the Departments of Performance Studies and Comparative Literature at New York University, where he teaches courses on Black studies, poetics, and critical theory. His scholarship focuses on the social practice of poetry and criticism. His latest work, created in collaboration with musician Brandon López, is Revision (TAO Forms Records, 2024).
He has written numerous influential books on poetry and criticism, including In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition (University of Minnesota Press, 2003), The Feel Trio (Letter Machine Editions, 2014)—a finalist for the National Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and winner of the California Book Award—and Perennial Fashion Presence Falling (Wave Books, 2023).
The Hayden V. White Distinguished Annual Lecture Series is funded by the Thomas H. and Josephine Baird Memorial Fund, which supports lectures on historical and cultural theory. The series honors the legacy of Hayden White, a pioneering scholar in historiography and a founding professor in the Department of History of Consciousness.
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