On April 10, 2025, the Department of Anthropology hosted a public conversation with Dr. Rezenet Moges-Riedel, Assistant Professor and Co-Assistant Director of the ASL Linguistics and Deaf Cultures Program at California State University Long Beach, and Dr. Kelsey Henry, Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellow in Race and Ethnicity Studies in the Society of Fellows and Lecturer in the Humanities Council and African American Studies. A linguistic anthropologist, Moges-Riedel is a leading scholar of D/deaf identity and intersectionality, in particular how D/deaf culture intersects with race and gender in different societies.

Centered around James Baldwin’s 1960 essay “Notes of a Native Son,” Moges-Riedel and Henry’s conversation took place across American Sign Language and English, and was moderated by Dr. Timothy Loh, Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellow in the Society of Fellows and Lecturer in the Humanities Council and Anthropology. They reflected on researching and teaching in Black Disability Studies and Black Deaf Studies, and the intellectual and political tools these fields might provide us in the current political moment. 

This event was co-organized by Loh and Senior Lecturer and Director of the American Sign Language (ASL) Program Noah Buchholz, and co-sponsored by the Humanities Council, the Program in Linguistics, and the ASL Program as part of the Baldwin Circles project.

This event was recently featured on the main Princeton University website.