Vincent Lloyd: Black Dignity

Black Dignity by Dr Vincent Lloyd (Villanova University, Pennsylvania) The idea of dignity is a common denominator of the abolitionist movement, the US civil rights movement, the black power movement, black feminist movements, and #BlackLivesMatter. To what extent is there a specifically Black understanding of dignity? How does it resonate with Catholic and secular liberal accounts of dignity, and how can it complicate those accounts? How do black organic intellectuals, such as Paul Robeson, exemplify black understandings of dignity – not only as conceptualized but as performed? I argue that a Black political-theological account of dignity is at the center of the new moral vocabulary congealing around racial justice movements today, even as that political-theological background is under-appreciated in social movements. This event is organised by the Department of Theology and Religion and the Centre for Catholic Studies at Durham University. --About the Alan Richardson Lecture The Alan Richardson Lecture is given annually by the incumbent Alan Richardson Fellow. The fellowship is endowed to promote research into the exposition and defence of Christian doctrine within the context of contemporary thought and its challenges. The Fellowship was founded in honour of the Very Reverend Alan Richardson, K.B.E., D.D., (1905-75), formerly Dean of York, Professor of Christian Theology in the University of Nottingham and Canon of Durham Cathedral. --About the Catholic Theology Research Seminar Series The Catholic Theology Research Seminar Series is a regular forum for scholarly discussion of pertinent issues in the Catholic traditions of theology and Church. The seminar series ranges across the traditional theological disciplines (scriptural, historical, philosophical, systematic, liturgical, ethical and practical/pastoral), Catholic social thought and practice, and social-scientific approaches to Catholicism.