This talk will use a hybrid, multi-disciplinary lens to explore how Black women’s art intersects with and influences popular media through mainstream visual representation, as well as its relationship to political discourses on race, gender and embodied experience. Drawing on Black feminism, Literacy Studies and Critical Theory, I focus on the work of Kara Walker and Julie Dash as situated within the contested and politically charged narratives that animate the ways in which we understand current trends and cultural productions ranging from Beyonce’s Lemonade to #BlackGirlMagic to post-Katrina New Orleans. By theorizing these artifacts and relationships, the talk also grapples with contextualizing these works as part of a continuum wherein Black women’s experiences (through artistic production) reflect and constitute a complex network of literacies engaging with race, class, gender, sexuality and revolution. Lastly, the talk aims to mobilize these subjects for classroom practice that responds to the growing need for instructional and curricular innovations that not only include but center Black women's art and feminist theory as potential catalysts for social change.
Sponsored by Gender & Women’s Studies and the College of Arts & Sciences
Co-sponsored by Sociology, English, Social Theory, African American & Africana Studies
