By Kentucky Arts Council and Lindsey Piercy
LEXINGTON, Ky. (March 29, 2021) — Multiple award-winning novelist Crystal Wilkinson has been appointed 2021-22 Kentucky Poet Laureate by Gov. Andy Beshear.
Keynote for EGSO’s upcoming Symposium next Friday, 3/19, at 1-2:30 pm EST (registration link below).
Dr. Jennifer Sadler of the Cite Black Authors project will be coming to speak with us about equitable citation practices (see talk description and bio below). We’re thrilled to be able host her through a grant from the Gaines Center and want to make sure the entire department as well as the larger UK community is invited. Please feel free to circulate broadly, and thank you!
Zoom Link: https://uky.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwvdu2orzsiH9DY8DgJC2g_50vwwqgFuiKQ
In-Text Equity
Citation practices have a longstanding history affirming foundational theories and amplifying notable researchers in a given field. The challenge for today’s scholars is to critically examine the potential inequities of these processes and reimagine the worldview in which we advance our studies. If we do not shift the way source and cite information, we perpetuate systems that position whiteness atop the pedestal of intellect, instead of creating active citation practices that both quantify and equilibrate racial representation, Barriers to achieving equitable citation are explored, followed by advocacy tools for graduate students and junior researchers. As you advance in your academic career, being able to understand the direct, tangible strategies you implement that advance inclusive methods and social justice initiatives will not only provide a better framework for research and teaching but will also aid in your ability to be a stronger ally.
Dr. Jennifer Sadler is an assistant professor and lead of the marketing program at Columbia College Chicago. She led a team of researchers in 2020 to develop Cite Black Authors, a digital database of academic citations and resources by Black scholars. Since its inception, Cite Black Authors has been used as a hub for interdisciplinary research and was recently archived by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the research arm of the New York Public Library. Professor Sadler seeks to disrupt higher education by shifting how we incorporate equity into teaching and learning. Her research focuses on the application of critical race theory to marketing and media strategy, specifically understanding how the role of the counter-narrative may be used to upend racial systems of oppression. Cite Black Authors provides an avenue to radically push against standard publishing practices in academia and not only amplify Black scholars but recognize their work as invaluable contributions to research.
The InKY Reading Series is broadcast live on Zoom.
Can't make the reading? Watch later on YouTube!
Registration link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEsf-uspzMiGtzF35jb9MrsbG0CYq…;
A native of Danville, Kentucky, Frank X Walker is the first African American writer to be named Kentucky Poet Laureate. Walker has published eleven collections of poetry, including his most recent, Masked Man, Black: Pandemic & Protest Poems, and Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers, which was awarded the 2014 NAACP Image Award for Poetry and the Black Caucus American Library Association Honor Award for Poetry. He is also the author of Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York, winner of the 2004 Lillian Smith Book Award, and Isaac Murphy: I Dedicate This Ride, which he adapted for stage, earning him the Paul Green Foundation Playwrights Fellowship Award. His poetry was also dramatized for the 2016 Contemporary American Theater Festival in Shepherdstown, WV and staged by Message Theater for the 2015 Breeders Cup Festival. Voted one of the most creative professors in the south, Walker coined the term “Affrilachia” and co-founded the Affrilachian Poets, subsequently publishing the much-celebrated eponymous collection. His honors also include a 2004 Lannan Literary Fellowship for Poetry, the 2008 and 2009 Denny C. Plattner Award for Outstanding Poetry in Appalachian Heritage, the 2013 West Virginia Humanities Council’s Appalachian Heritage Award, as well as fellowships and residences with Cave Canem, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Kentucky Arts Council. The recipient of honorary doctorates from University of Kentucky, Transylvania University, Spalding University and Centre College, Walker is the founding editor of pluck! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture and serves as Professor of English and African American and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. https://www.frankxwalker.com/
makalani bandele was raised in Louisville, KY, but currently resides in Lexington, KY. He is an Affrilachian Poet and Cave Canem fellow. He has also received fellowships from the Kentucky Arts Council, Millay Colony, and Vermont Studio Center. He is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame with a BA in the Program of Liberal Studies, as well as a graduate of Shaw University with a Master of Divinity in Biblical Studies. He currently attends the University of Kentucky in pursuit of an MFA in Creative Writing. His work has been published in several anthologies, and widely in print and online journals, African-American Review, Killens Review of Arts and Letters, and Sou’wester to name a few. Most recently work from his collection, under the aegis of a winged mind, which won the 2019 Autumn House Press Poetry Prize, appears in Prairie Schooner, Foundry, 32poems, and North American Review. His collection of poems hellfightin’, was published by Aquarius Press in 2011. https://makbandele.com/
Please join us in saying goodbye to the MFA in Creative Writing graduating c/o 2021 with a virtual reading of their works.
Registration link: https://uky.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_lm8cmrL9TTKOZBQ0wVl1pQ
