Towards Criteria of Dark Africana+When The Real Returns to Campus Dissertation Presentation

​Since December 2025, Brown University’s campus has faced an unprecedented level of violence, including mass casualties, on-campus altercations, and the loss of multiple lives within the school’s dormitories. In this presentation, Dr. zuri arman applies their dissertation research to Brown to offer a theory for why this is the case, and how student and faculty organizing might go about addressing this violence. arman’s dissertation returns to the origins of racial-imperial modernity, Elmina Castle, a fortress facilitating the trade of African captives and gold in Ghana, West Africa. In their dissertation, arman argues that the pattern of relations that led to its construction are the same governing our current social order. Applying their research to the current campus crisis, arman provocatively argues that like Elmina, Brown University is a fortress securing the neo-imperial accumulation of metaphysical and material resources for those residing on its hill. Adapting Aimé Césaire’s concept of the “imperial boomerang,” is it possible the uptick in violence on campus is the return of the dispossessive force Brown, Inc. has imposed onto black and brown people in Providence both historically and contemporarily? If so, what are the implications for “campus security”? arman suggests that perhaps safety and security encircle questions of metaphysical violence and ethical solidarity, rather than heightened policing and consented surveillance.