Charisse Burden-Stelly speaks at 20th annual Zantop Memorial Lecture

On April 25, the comparative literature program hosted Wayne State University African American studies professor Charisse Burden-Stelly for the 20th annual Zantop Memorial Lecture in Carson Hall. Burden-Stelly spoke about her book, "Black Scare/ Red Scare: Theorizing Capitalist Racism in the United States," which described the panic surrounding Black equality and communism during the 20th century. 

According to Daniel Keane GR'24, the Zantop lecture is held in honor of German language and comparative literature professor Susanne Zantop — who was murdered, along with her husband, Earth sciences professor Half Zantop, in 2001. 

"Each year, the Zantop lecture is a bittersweet occasion, for it gives us the opportunity to both mourn the tragic and untimely loss in 2001 of two beloved Dartmouth professors and members of the Upper Valley community and … honor their memory through an intellectual communal gathering of students, faculty, staff and Upper Valley residents alike," Keane said. 

According to Keane, the comparative literature masters cohort — which he is currently a part of — chooses the lecture speaker each year. Keane said the current group chose Burden-Stelly, a member of the political organization Black Alliance for Peace, because she conducts "objective scholarship" on the history of anti-Black oppression and anti-communism in the United States. 

"[Burden-Stelly's] research questions come out of political work, and I think that's how all intellectual work should function," Keane said. "It should be rooted in political work that's for one's community." 

For the full article: The Dartmouth