Lecture: Jonathan Holloway “Currency: Race and the Circulation of the American Ideal”

This Nellie Y. McKay Lecture in the Humanities is a reflection upon the rhetorical value of the “American Ideal” and what that ideal looks like when viewed through a racial prism. Prof. Jonathan Holloway presents a close reading of three objects—a Revolutionary War-era headstone, a mid-twentieth century coin, and the 21st century U.S. passport—to affirm Ralph Ellison’s poignant assertions about racial invisibility and offer a cutting assessment of the costs associated with the circulation of the transcendent national ideal.