Dean’s Lecture Series: Critical Conversations on Black History: President Holloway

Currency is a reflection upon the rhetorical value of the American Ideal and what that ideal looks like when viewed through a racial prism. A close reading of three objects—a Revolutionary War-era headstone, a mid-twentieth century coin, and the 21^st century U.S. passport—affirms Ralph Ellison’s poignant assertions about racial invisibility and offers a cutting assessment of the costs associated with the circulation of the transcendent national ideal.