Thursday, March 28, 2024

Burn Baby Burn: The Politics of Urban Riots, a lecture by historian Britney Murphy

Saturday, May 21
11:00 am - 12:00 pm

Burroughs-Saden Library, 3rd floor Community Room

UCONN historian Britney Murphy tells the history of urban America, and Bridgeport, through the perspective of the “riot.” She argues that uncontrolled and unlawful acts of collective violence are an unavoidable byproduct of urban living. Cities, as centers of commerce, politics, and population diversity, are powder kegs in which contests over power periodically erupt into violence.

Britney Murphy received her Master of Arts degree in history from the University of Connecticut in 2018 and is currently working towards her Ph.D. from the same institution. Her area of research interest is twentieth-century United States history. Britney worked in the City of Bridgeport for two years as a Community Needs and Assets Coordinator with AmeriCorps Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) and in the city’s Office of Neighborhood Revitalization as a Special Projects Assistant. Her article, “The Fall of Mount Trashmore and the Rise of Community Activism,” is her first published work. Britney’s dissertation examines the relationship among civic engagement, citizenship, and socioeconomic identities through the lens of one national community service program, VISTA.