Irene Chan, Visual Arts and Asian Studies, is featured in an interview published by Women’s Studio Workshop (WSW), an arts center she first visited back in 1996 as a studio intern. She speaks about the development of her artwork, her use of materials, and her projects about racial and cultural identity. Read the interview here on WSW’s website.

In the latest essay for his Race Stories column in The New York Times, Maurice Berger, research professor at the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture, shares his take on the thousands of photographs flooding out of Ferguson, Missouri. “Historically, photography was integral to the fight against racism and segregation. Leaders from Sojourner Truth to Malcolm X embraced the photograph’s potential as evidence and its ability to combat stereotypes,” writes Berger. “But sometimes, as in Ferguson, the camera has served as a more spontaneous ‘weapon of choice,’ as the photographer Gordon Parks called it, wielded by the oppressed in moments of anger, fear or frustration.”

Read “In Ferguson, Photographs as Powerful Agents” and view the photographs at The New York Times Lens blog.

Berger’s Race Stories column, which appears monthly on The New York Times website, is “a continuing exploration of the relationship of race to photographic portrayals of race.”

The LLC is excited to welcome Dr. Cedric Herring as a new faculty member of the doctoral program. Prior to UMBC, Dr. Cedric Herring was Professor of Sociology and Public Policy in the Department of Sociology and in the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is also the former Director of the Race and Public Policy Program at the University of Illinois and former Interim Head of the Department of Sociology at UIC. Dr. Herring is former national President of the Association of Black Sociologists.

Dr. Herring publishes on topics such as race and public policy, diversity, stratification and inequality, and jobs and economic development. He has published seven books and more than 60 scholarly articles. His most recent books are Critical Diversity: The New Case for Inclusion and Equal Opportunity and Combating Racism and Xenophobia: Transatlantic and International Perspectives." He has received support for his research from the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, and others. In addition, he has shared his findings in community forums, in newspapers and magazines, on radio and television, before government officials, and at the United Nations.

 Please join us in making him feel welcome!