Conference Program and Archive
During the 2021-2022 Great World Texts in Wisconsin program, high school teachers and students throughout the state will read and engage with James Weldon Johnson’s 1912 novel The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. Known only as the “Ex-Colored Man,” the protagonist in Johnson’s novel is forced to choose between celebrating his African American heritage or “passing” as an average white man in a post-Reconstruction America that is rapidly changing.
From March 14 to April 4, 2022, participating schools will be sharing student projects created in response to James Weldon Johnson’s novel during GWT Month! We will be archiving these projects here on our digital conference program and archive, as well as highlighting outstanding projects on our weekly newsletter during this three-week period. Follow the fun on Twitter and Youtube with #excoloredwi, and engage with the students who have worked so hard this year exploring issues of race and identity through art, literature, science, business, technology, and community.
Our conference will culminate with a virtual lecture with scholar Jacqueline Goldsby, editor of the Norton Critical Edition of The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. She is a professor of English and African American Studies at Yale University. The schools and students will meet with Professor Goldsby on Monday April 4 from 11am-noon CT, featuring questions from our participating students. A recording of this event lecture will be shared only with participating schools. In addition, Professor Goldsby will be giving a public lecture on her own research (date TBD and registration to come), co-hosted by the Wisconsin Book Festival.
Student Projects
Arrowhead Union High School
Kewaunee High School
Milwaukee High School of the Arts
Oshkosh North High School
Osseo-Fairchild High School
Southern Door High School
Whitnall High School
Bay Port High School
Étude High School
Lake Mills High School
New Berlin West Middle/High School
Oshkosh West High School
School of Options and Applied Research High School
Xavier Catholic High School
La Follette High School
Necedah High School
New Horizons Charter School
Rock University School
Whitehall Memorial High School
Special Thanks
Great World Texts in Wisconsin is a public humanities initiative of the Center for the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. We are grateful to the program’s sponsors: A. W. Mellon Foundation; the Evjue Foundation; UW-Madison Libraries; the Department of English; the College of Letters & Science; the Anonymous Fund of the University of Wisconsin-Madison; and the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. Thank you to this year’s faculty advisor, Brittney Edmonds, Assistant Professor of Afro-American Studies, and Tolulupe Akinwole, writer of the curricular guide. Special thanks to Vice Provost Lisa Carter and the staff of UW Libraries, including Todd Michelson-Ambelang.
Support Great World Texts
Your gift helps support high schools from all corners of Wisconsin engage critically and creatively in world literature while preparing students for the college experience and beyond. Funds go towards the purchase of copies of each year’s text—which live on as a part of each participating school’s permanent library—as well as paying for transportation and other costs that allow students to equitably participate in the annual student conference each spring.