We Are Here. | Fall 2023 by African and Black Diaspora Studies at DePaul University

DEPT. OF AFRICAN AND BLACK DIASPORA STUDIES NEWSLETTER

WE ARE HERE. FALL 2023 EDITION COVER ART BY: IMANI BARNES

Message from the Chair

Winter 2024 Term Courses

How to Major or Minor in ABD

New Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Xorla Ocloo

New Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Taurean Webb

Emmett Till Scholarship Recipents

Student Photography Spotlight: Makyla Spann

Interview with Professor Francesca Royster

A Beat Beyond Interview with Dr. Amor Kohli

Alumni Spotlight Interview: Ariana Collazo

Study Abroad: South Africa Feature

Student Art Spotlight: Imani Barnes

Reading Suggestions

Reading Suggestions Continued

MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR Welcome to the Fall 2023 issue of We Are Here, the Department of African and Black Diaspora Studies newsletter. We have another wonderful newsletter full of information about the ABD department, including work by some of our students. ABD has some new people to welcome. First, welcome to all of our ABD majors and minors, new and continuing. We also have a new full-time, permanent faculty member, Dr. Xorla Ocloo. Dr. Ocloo will be teaching classes related to Black environmental studies and environmental justice, including her current class, “Food Justice in Black Communities.” She’ll also be teaching our ABD major core class, “Africa: Ideas, Peoples, Cultures, Movements” in the Winter term. Her teaching and research interests are sustainable food systems, social-ecological systems, urban and rural agriculture, and Black livelihoods and well-being. Dr. Ocloo comes to us after just completing her doctoral work at Emory University. We also welcome Dr. Taurean Webb to ABD. Dr. Webb is here as the STRC postdoctoral fellow in ABD. His research and teaching interests are in Black internationalism, Afro-Arab transnationalism, African American religious history, Black Renaissance-era visual arts, and visual arts and religious metaphor within contemporary transnational social movements. Dr. Webb will be teaching our class, “Black Freedom Movements” in the Winter term. You can find more information about Dr. Ocloo and Dr. Webb further on in the newsletter. Also, welcome to our new department assistant, Aliyah Philip. Aliyah just started with us in September. She’s also working on her Master’s degree at DePaul, in the “Human-Computer Interaction” program in the College of CDM. We’re really glad to have all of these new people here. They are fantastic additions to ABD! Finally, ABD majors and minors should consider applying for the Emmett Till scholarship. It’s only open to all ABD majors and minors. Please look on the ABD majors/minors D2L page for more information. Please contact me at akohli@depaul.edu for any ABD advising. Wishing everyone a great rest of the Fall term!

- Dr. Amor Kohli

WINTER 2024 COURSES

GETTING A DEGREE IN ABD MAJOR

MINOR

ABD 100: Introduction to ABD

13 courses

6 courses

1 of the following: 4 credit hours

ABD 200: Africa- Peoples, Cultures, Ideas & Movements

ABD 206: Afro-Caribbean & Latin America

ABD 208: African America- Peoples, Cultures, Ideas & Movements

Four Electives (200-level & above)

Three ABD electives

Four 300-level Courses ABD 391: Senior Capstone

(senior ABD minors may take the ABD Capstone in partial fulfillment of this requirement)

ONE 300 level course

Questions? Email us at abd@depaul.edu !

Meet Dr. Xorla Ocloo Assistant Professor || African and Black Diaspora Studies, D e p a r t m e n t o f E n v i r o n m e n t a l S c i e n c e a n d S t u d i e s

What drew you to DePaul? As a Chicago native, I have been familiar with DePaul all my life and know many people who speak highly of the institution. When I visited, I had a wonderful experience connecting with the great students and faculty and felt that DePaul could be an excellent academic home for me.

What do you look forward to most during your time at DePaul? I am looking forward to getting to interact more with the students and learn from them. I am also looking forward to working with a team of amazing faculty to help offer our students a challenging, stimulating, interdisciplinary, and enriching education to set them on the right path of achieving their career goals.

What is the field of your teaching interest and expertise? My primary field of teaching interest and expertise is in Black rural and urban sustainable agriculture. I am an environmental social scientist, so I use quantitative ecological field and lab-based methods and qualitative anthropological data collection methods to address community priorities concerning their food systems.

What classes will you be teaching for the remainder of the '23-'24 term? This fall term, I am teaching “Food Justice in Black Communities” and “Introduction to Environmental Studies.” For the remainder of the ’23-’24 term, I will be teaching “Africa: Peoples, Cultures, Ideas and Movements”,” Introduction to Environmental Studies”, “Environmental Justice and Advocacy”, and developing a new course on Black Farmers.

Can you give us some insight into the classes you'll be teaching this upcoming winter quarter? This upcoming winter quarter, I will be teaching “Africa: Peoples, Cultures, Ideas and Movements.” In this course, we will explore the creation of cultures and empires precolonialism and take a close look at contemporary African societies where we will focus on gender relations, popular music, environmental sustainability, political power, economic development, etc. I will also be teaching “Introduction to Environmental Studies” where we will be focusing on how the role of power and inequality contribute to environmental problems and how those problems in turn impact BIPOC.

What is one thing you'd want students to know before taking one of your classes? I would want students to know that my goal is to teach students to be a more well-rounded scholar, one that can think “outside of the box” and make positive contributions to society.

Meet Dr. Taurean Webb 2023-2024 STRC Post Doctoral Fellow What drew you to DePaul? I love the urban university context. I love experiencing learning within urban contexts and have a special appreciation for universities that take seriously “the city” as a part of their educational missions. As a scholar of Africana Studies, I think that Chicago is one best places for integrating the cityscape into the classroom.

Also, as a student of Black Studies—and the early tenets of what would become the discipline—I have a special appreciation for a learning program that takes seriously the justice ethic of “Black study.” In my estimation, justice and equity rest at the heart of the ideological underpinnings of Africana/ Black Studies; and that matters. It matters to and for the things that we study and it matters, especially, for students whom, themselves, come from already marginalized people groups. An important aspect that drew me to DePaul was the university’s [better-than-most] track record on justice-related issues, questions, and aspirations. I’m hopeful that ABD and the students who come through ABD will continue to bear the good fruits of these commitments.

What do you look forward to most during your time at DePaul? I most look forward to jumping into the classroom. I’ll be teaching in the Winter and Spring terms this year and very much look forward to the kinds of spaces that I’ll be able to cultivate with students. A lot of my teaching methods assume students to be “textured learners,” with different learning styles and different ways that they best experience what it means “to grow and learn.” So for me, I’m always interested in cultivating learning experiences inside and outside the classroom. When the terms and folks’ schedules allow, I enjoy finding ways to integrate urban contextual learning into my undergrad classes—sometimes this means making room for site visits, hosting class sessions at course-relevant sites off-campus; sometimes this means bringing artists, civic leaders, or other course-relevant personalities into our classroom, to help facilitate student learning in different, innovative ways. I think that the Chicagoland area is one of the most fruitful places in the US to foster this kind of integrative learning practice. I’ve said this before, but I really mean it. And also, kudos to ABD for building a department that makes this sort of creative thinking and course design possible. Imagining and “living out” courses in this way is one thing to which I most look forward.

What is the field of your teaching interest and expertise? I am a scholar of race and religion. Specifically, I study the racial and religious dynamics within domestic and international social justice movements. Sometimes that takes me deeply into the histories of different Black-US religious traditions that are marvelously international in their aspirations; other times, my work takes me into the visual arts and other expressive cultures within social movements across the Arab, Latin American, and/or Caribbean worlds.

What classes will you be teaching for the remainder of the '23-'24 term? During the Winter 2024 term, I’ll be teaching a course entitled, “Black Freedom Movements.” And in the Spring 2024 term, I’ll be teaching a course entitled, “Black Religion and Chicago.” I'm also building a Spring course that will revolve around Black internationalism and the arts. We'll spend some time studying how Black artists informed and were informed by different artistic traditions, such as Latin American, Arab, and some European creative sites and sensibilities. Can you give us some insight into the classes you'll be teaching this upcoming winter quarter? Absolutely. In my estimation, it is impossible to talk responsibly about Black freedom movements without placing them in a fundamentally international context. From some of the earliest moments of Black liberation—unrest in Saint Domingue, for instance, a time that we later came to know as the Haitian Revolution—to the present-day Movement for Black Lives (#BlackLivesMatter) orbit; to understand these movements, and so many others, one must understand how Black lives, discourses, and ideas circulated around the globe—and why they did so. This is the frame into which my Black Freedom Movements course is situated. I think that students who are interested in global studies, Black ideas, the movement of Black lives around the world, how Black lives interacted with other kinds of lives around the world, and freedom and justice movements would fit right in, here. What is one thing you'd want students to know before taking one of your classes? This is a good question. Institutions can be strange places to navigate, especially for students. For any number of different reasons. One of my biggest investments - and indeed, what I hope students come to discover - is that I very much hope to be able to journey alongside them in that navigation. I take this seriously. Certainly, I do assign reading that I expect students to complete; I expect students to invest their best effort into their learning experiences; and I hope to foster classrooms that help students feel both safe/heard and challenged to self-reflect. At the end of the day, however, as a teacher, I look to partner with students on their learning journey and be present in the ways that best encourage their flourishing.

DEPT. OF AFRICAN AND BLACK DIASPORA STUDIES

Emmett Till Endowed Scholarship We invite ABD majors and minors to apply for the annual Emmett Till Endowed Scholarship. Applicants must be:

DECLARED ABD STUDENTS

JUNIOR OR SENIOR STATUS

IN GOOD ACADEMIC STANDING

WITH FINANCIAL NEED

Up to two scholarships of $7000 will be awarded to ABD student-scholars!

Apply through the DePaul Online Scholarship Application website. The application deadline is November 15, 2023.

Emmett Till Scholarship 2022 Awardees This award is named in the memory of Emmett Till. In a narrative of 500-1000 words students were asked to describe how the legacies of the struggle against racial violence—and towards racial justice—have impacted their intellectual development and future goals.

I am truly thankful and honored to be this year’s recipient. As the recipient of the Emmett Till Scholarship, I was able to dedicate the necessary time to my studies and cut back on work. In 2022, I joined a human rights organization, Women’s All Point Bulletin (WAPB), where we work to eradicate police violence against women of color, not only in Chicago, but globally.

Clark Foster-Dykes Major: Philosophy Minor: ABD Graduation Year: 2024

This scholarship helped fund my upcoming study abroad trip to D.C. to explore careers in government that will help me be the change I want to see and network with those in Congress who can help bring our organization's goals to reality. I look forward to continuing to strive toward the legacy of this scholarship.

I am a student from Evanston, Illinois. I am majoring in philosophy and Black Studies and their intersections. I have been interested in these things in the past, but DePaul has offered me the unique opportunity that I may not have received at other institutions. As a transfer student and adult learner, I appreciate the rigorous learning opportunity and am excited to continue my education at DePaul.

Krystal Morgan Major: ABD Minor: Public Policy Graduation Year: 2024

I want to continue my education further after DePaul. My goals are to pursue a PhD in Black Studies or Philosophy. I am excited and interested in questions about how race and racism impact the ways in which we think, act, and experience the world. I plan to continue to do this throughout my career. I plan to continually learn and apply that learning to my community.

Student Photography Spotlight:

Makyla Spann

Makyla Spann is a third year at DePaul University. The photos featured in this issue of We Are Here are from Issue 1 of her magazine called I Love Women. She started her magazine out of boredom last summer but soon found out that it was something she loved and had a passion for. The theme for this issue was "Dress Shirts" which she came up with randomly. All of her photos are all unnamed and Issue 2 of I Love Women came out on June 24th!

The subject’s name is Michaelene Bolan. This photo is my grandmother gardening in her garden last summer. I wanted a photo in my magazine with flowers in it somehow but struggled to really come up with any ideas. I ended up wanting my grandma in the magazine and asked her if she could pretend to garden. I didn’t think the photos would turn out the way they did but the lighting was perfect, and I really liked how the green contrasts with the white dress shirt.

The subject’s name is Trudy Cohen. This is one of my favorite photos I’ve ever taken. I was lucky enough to be able to take pictures of my friend Trudy for my magazine last summer, she ended up being on the cover for it. She was one of the first people I took pictures of and if I’m remembering correctly, she said that she should stand in front of the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis. I’m glad she did because this photo came out amazing, I think the black and white editing goes perfectly with the building and Trudy posed perfectly for this shot.

The subject’s name is Verselé (Vj) Shaw. I wanted some black people in my magazine and Vj is one of my best friends so I asked her to model for me. I didn’t have to ask much of her she’s gorgeous so she really only needed to stand there. I wanted her looking off into space which she did perfectly. I really ended up liking the colors in this photo there’s nothing really too bright other than the tie and I thought it was just pleasing to the eye.

The subject’s name is Georgia Knox. This is my youngest sister in the photo, I did not intend for her to be in my magazine but after taking pictures of my other sisters she wanted me to take pictures of her. When the baggy shirt and oversized tie was put on her she looked adorable and I loved the way the shirt and tie were so baggy on her. After a few different photos I got this one, I love the movement in it and I think the black and white and grain effect pull it together perfectly. Another one of my favorite photos I’ve taken.

Follow the Artist! @makylaspann @ilovewomenthemagazine

Interview with Dr. Amor Kohli Amor Kohli is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of African and Black Diaspora Studies at DePaul. He received his PhD at Tufts University and taught at Tufts, Middlebury College, and the University of Vermont before joining DePaul in 2003 as one of the first two faculty hired in the African and Black Diaspora Studies Program.

Q: What inspired the title? A: There was an early piece of Major Jackson’s, which is included in the book, that was written for The Source, which was the first mainstream hip hop magazine. Jackson had written a piece about the spoken word poetry scene in Philadelphia and it was called “A Beat Beyond” and I thought that could be a great title because it suggests something outside, something further, something moving. Rhythm's foundational, after all, and I do like alliteration.

Q: What will readers find as they progress through the book? A: They’ll find different essays and liner notes and thought pieces reflecting Major Jackson's view on poetry, art, and society. But what they'll also find as they go through the book is really a sense of the development of an artist. People will also find a continual engagement with poetry and what poetry means, what art means, and why it is essential for not only the writer, but for the rest of us.

Q: What do you want potential readers to know most about this book? A: It is something that provides insight into a black poet that one might not always get from an interview or from the poetry itself. The varieties of influences, the varieties of approaches and the things that they read and so forth. This is really a deep dive taking you behind the artistry .

Q: What was the most difficult obstacle you faced in the editing process? A: The most difficult obstacle was that the publisher was very strict about total word count. When you're publishing a book, they'll say it can't be longer than 70,000 words or whatever number, including notes. I tried to push back on that little and it didn't really get that far because of what they budgeted. There were certain things that I would love to have had in there that wouldn’t fit under the publisher’s word count. The choices about what to cut are always hard because there was so much good stuff that we had to leave out.

Q: How does this book impact Black Studies? A: I would say that it contributes to presenting the development and the vision of a black poet who has been inspired by other black writers and black poets, so it's part of a tradition. I think it's a contribution to just show the variety and the wide approaches that black poets and black artists can use. There's not one way to be a black poet, and that that's one of the things that this book demonstrates.

Meet the Author Major Jackson (born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American poet and professor at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of six collections of poetry. He earned degrees from Temple University and the University of Oregon. Major Jackson is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in the Humanities at Vanderbilt University. From 2002 until 2020, he taught at the University of Vermont as the Richard A. Dennis Professor of English and University Distinguished Professor. He is a former graduate faculty member of the New York University Creative Writing Program and the Bennington Writing Seminars. He serves as the Poetry Editor of The Harvard Review. A recipient of fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Guggenheim Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts, his awards include a Pushcart Prize, a Whiting Award, a Pew Fellowship in the Arts, and a Witter Bynner Fellowship in conjunction with the Library of Congress. He also served as poet-in-residence at The Frost Place, creative arts fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, Jack Kerouac Writer-in-Residence at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and Sidney Harman Writer-in-Residence at Baruch College.

Interview with Dr. Francesca Royster Francesca T. Royster a Professor of English at DePaul University. She teaches courses in Shakespeare Studies,Critical Race theory, Gender and Queer Theory and African American Literature. She has also published numerous book chapters and scholarly essays. She is the author of two academic books, Becoming Cleopatra: The Shifting Image of an Icon and Sounding Like a No-No: Queer Sounds and Eccentric Acts in the Post-Soul Era. She received her PhD in English Literature from the University of California, Berkeley.

Q: What inspired the title behind Choosing Family? A: This concept of Chosen Family has been talked a lot about in the queer community as a way of thinking about family in an expansive way, countering the kind of isolation of a nuclear family found in portrayals of heteronormativity. Part of it is also thinking about adoption and kind of really kind of complicating the idea of choice because as adoptive parents who are privileged to go into a private open adoption, we are entering this in a sort of voluntary way that gives us both agency. What feels like a choice and intentional us, might have been kind of, the whatsomething do you wantvery potential readers for to know about choosing family? lesser of two evils for the birth family and really recognizing the ways that we're in relationships to another family even though we don't see them they're still part of our family too. Choosing Family wasn't originally my first title. I had this other title in mind, which is Fierce Love, and I really loved the title because of the passion behind it. Another book came out with the same title so I was like, ok, I guess I can't choose this, but I feel like Choosing Family is good because it's an accessible title and it might appeal to a lot of different readers.

Q: What do you want potential readers to know about Choosing Family? A: Wow, that's such a good question. I guess I want potential readers to know that even even as it is a very particular story about time and place and real people in real time making decisions that there are big issues. There are like things that I think, I hope that they can tap into and discover even if they're not queer two old queer people, you know, kissing to adopt a child. And some of that has to do with, like, creating the home that you want, that makes you feel loved that you can, have, you know, 2nd and 3rd and 4th chances to, like, change and shift and create what you want in your life. And that you can always like, even if your ha your history or past has painful stories or stories of loss or grief that they can also be a, a source of sustenance and inspiration and things like that. And, that those are all lessons that I think we could all, we could all use hopefully.

Q: How do you your impact studies or where is their place whatthink do you wantbooks potential readersBlack to know about choosing family? within Black studies? A: Both of the books I've published this year are examples of kind of Afrofuturist thinking, even though they don't have it in their titles. I'm very in influenced by the power of the imagination to create the worlds that we want. Afrofuturism is deeply grounded in the past and trying to use lessons of the past in creative and unexpected ways. Even though it might not look like Afrofuturism in the ways that Octavia Butler or some other really cool Afrofuturists portray their music, visual art, or books, I think of them as kind of like time travel. I was reading recently Kiese Laymon's book, Long Division, which is about Black Southern queer identity. It's a novel and it has like these two generations that are kind of talking back and forth to each other and the way that Layman writes is literally through time travel. But I think that that's actually what I'm trying to do in my book. It's just not done in such a, you know, sci-fi way. Despite this, it is about time travel and and kind of seeing the ways that the past can help you think through the problems of the present and the future.

Alumni Interview: Ariana Collazo Q: What advice would you give to your, to your past self prior to attending college?

A: You know what I would say? Do as many things outside of classes. I couldn't do many extracurricular activities because my first year I was really invested in something outside of school and it took up all of my time. Then COVID happened and it joining clubs was even more difficult. In my last year I've been to some speaker events like the Philosophy Circle, but I really wish that I had done extracurricular activities before my senior year. It's really how you meet people, you don't really have time to meet people during class. Another thing I would say is beep, hm, be prepared to read a lot more than you did before. Honestly, in high school, I was someone who got by not reading, I'm not gonna lie. You really have to sit down and commit to the work. So I would say just to be ready to really commit to the work in a way they didn't before because also the scholarship in this field deserves your respect, energy, and time.

Q: How has ABD impacted your experience within higher education.

A: ABD was interdisciplinary. I would say my sophomore and junior year I really started to explore other disciplines and how they connected to mind. So that's when I got into Philosophy. I would say it really enriched my understanding of other fields and I also think I became more aware of the world in a way. I always had an interest in black studies. I mean, that's why I majored in it, but actually focusing on it solely in college, introduced me to things I didn't even know about so many writers, so many thinkers. I actually think it's one of the best majors to improve your writing and your speaking skills because those are things we practiced in every class and also important emotional skills, like your empathy and understanding others. Overall, it just made me a better person.

Q: Is there a particular professor who has most impacted you? A: I would say Dr. Francesca Royster. She was actually the first professor and taught the first class I took at DePaul, which was Freedom Dreams. I'll always remember her for that. I then got to take her again for a topic class on Tony Morrison which was huge for me. I actually took the class intentionally because it was the time I was gathering my letters of recommendation for graduate school. I wanted it to be someone who I've had multiple classes with and I needed one person in black studies because that's what I was applying for. So I took the class with her and of course, the class was amazing. I thought that it was really nice to be with her again at the end of my DePaul career and for her to see how much I've grown. She also really helped me, not just with the letter, but also with the application process, it really meant a lot to me.

Q: Which ABD courses did you most enjoy? A: Freedom Dreams with Dr. Royster which I mentioned earlier and ABD 206: Afro Caribbean with Dr. Moody-Freeman. It's funny because I'm Puerto Rican and Black, but that was the first time I ever read literature by someone who was Afro Latino and is what prompted me to even think about the racial differences in those countries. What it means to say you're black in the Caribbean vs the United States is completely different. It was an amazing course, I think about it often. Another class that impacted me was Black Feminist Theories in a US Context with Professor Michelle Miller who is now a PhD candidate at Northwestern and a lovely person. I really wish I could take a class with her again. I've read some black feminism in the past, but getting to really dive into it and read writers I was not familiar with was amazing. Toni Morrison with Dr. Royster was also an amazing course. It was my first time really reading Toni Morrison besides The Bluest Eye which I read in high school. I loved that the class was very discussion oriented and it was also a very safe environment. The last one I'll mention is the James Baldwin class I'm taking right now with Dr. Billy Johnson Gonzalez, truly an amazing class that provides a lot of perspective into Baldwin's writing.

Student Art Spotlight: Mother Pepper LaBeija, 2023 Acrylic paint, glitter, collage, beads on canvas paper This piece is intended to celebrate the importance of historical queer icons like Pepper LaBeija and analyzes the qualities of being a “diva” through an intersectional and feminist lens. The divas I chose to illustrate are Pepper LaBeija and Beyoncé because both inspire other Black and brown queer people to celebrate themselves and to live their lives with purpose. Both divas are unapologetically themselves in the face of the heteronormative patriarchy and racist society that they operate in.

College Years, 2023 Acrylic paint on canvas In my artwork, I like to see myself and people who look like me enjoying the subtleties of life and taking up space. The painting shows a glimpse into my world with some of my closest friends from college having a good time. Like most of my art, I chose to depict black joy and mundanity through an impressionist perspective as a way for viewers to see themselves and connect to shared experiences in my art. This painting is an ode to my college friends who have made my experience at a PWI (predominantly white institution) less isolating.

Imani Barnes

Students Abroad: Krystal Morgan Q: Where did you go on your study abroad? A: I went to Johannesburg, Pretoria, Soweto and Cape Town South Africa Q: What was your experience like? A: My experience was eye opening and amazing. I have always wanted to visit Africa and this opportunity lived up to my dreams of how beautiful the continent of Africa is as well as the culture of black South Africans.

Q: How long was your stay? A: Our stay was a total of 10 days. We traveled November 28th-Decemebr 9th.

Q: What class offered the study abroad and what did that class cover in preparation for the trip? A: The class was LSP 200 - “Race, Ethnicity & Housing: Apartheid in the U.S. & South Africa.” Prior to the trip we studied the governing and residential patterns of ethnic and racial minorities in the U.S. and South Africa. We studied the biases in housing and the government’s role in segregation in both countries.

Q: What did you learn about the country while studying abroad? A: Prior to this class and the opportunity to visit South Africa, I did not understand the similarities between our countries. While there are similarities, there are also vast differences. While studying in South Africa, I learned about the oppression faced by people of color and how they are still suffering even after the end of apartheid. I also learned that not all the locals in South Africa feel as though Nelson Mandela truly afforded people of color liberation. That was probably the most shocking revelation to me my entire trip.

Q: What advice would you give students who want to study abroad, particularly for students studying Black studies? A: My advice would be to look for study abroad opportunities a school year in advance. This will give you time to adequately save and search for scholarship opportunities to pay for the trip. I think every student studying black studies should go on at least one study abroad trip and visit a country focusing on the black diaspora. Studying the diaspora abroad will expand your horizons and help you find opportunities to learn and grow through experiences you never knew existed within black culture.

READING

RECOMMENDATIONS

FROM OUR LOVELY FACULTY MEMBERS Dr. Symone A. Johnson

Black Disability Politics by Sami Schalk is a great book about how disability justice issues have been addressed throughout the history of Black activism in the United States. For folks interested in environmentalism and Pan-African social justice activism, I would recommend Pan-African Social Ecology: Speeches, Conversations, and Essays by Modibo Kadalie. Finally, N. Fadeke Castor's Spiritual Citizenship: Transnational Pathways from Black Power to Ifá in Trinidad is a beautifully written ethnography about how values of belonging, equality, and justice fostered through the practice of Ifá directly informs Afro-Diasporic activism.

Dr. Amor Kohli Other than Francesca Royster's new books (Black Country Music and Choosing Family), I'll suggest Christina Sharpe's latest book, Ordinary Notes, (FSG, 2023). In this book, Sharpe blends together memoir, critical analysis, reflections on politics, family, art, loss, and Blackness (to name just a few of the topics). This all results in a beautifully meditative and powerful book suffused with an ethics of care. The book was released to the public in April 2023, just in time for summer reading.

Dr. Shiera S. Malik I am reading (and loving) Audre Lorde: Dream of Europe (Selected Seminars and Interviews). Her vantage point is so thoughtful and engaged...useful I think for negotiating our lifeworlds, especially at the University. I read Zami: A New Spelling of my Name by Audre Lorde. Since it covers reflections of her childhood and her young adult experiences, I imagine that young people (women in particular) might find something useful in those stories even though the era of her youth is different than our current moment.

Dr. Julie E Moody-Freeman Our History Has Always Been Contraband: In Defense of Black Studies, which is edited by Colin Kaepernick, Robin D.G. Kelley, and KeeangaYamahtta Taylor. I have attached the promotion for this book which is now available for free to download: https://www.kaepernickpublishing.com/our-historyhas-always-been-contraband Until I Am Free: FANNIE LOU HAMER'S ENDURING MESSAGE TO AMERICA by Keisha Blain

Dr. Francesca T. Royster I have been reading and loving Imani Perry's South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon Line to Understand the Soul of America. I am also reading and teaching The Last Revival of Opal and Nev by Dawnie Watson- it's a (fictional) novel that's written as if it were a documentary-- a riveting book that centers the lives of Black women in Rock, and it has a great Spotify playlist!

Dr. Jacqueline Lazú I just read Daughters of the Stone by Dahlma LlanosFigueroa. It is really beautiful. It traces five generations of women from Africa to Puerto Rico to New York.

Dr. Christina Rivers I'd recommend Tara Betts' new volume of poetry Refuse to Disappear, that lifts up various aspects of black womanhood. Dr. Betts is an Illinois Poet Laureate. Even better, she'll be teaching full time with the PAX program soon so the book would be a great introduction to her and her courses.

Dr. Lori Pierce Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II At Home and Abroad by Matthew Delmont. This is a wonderful book about an aspect of history that has gone largely unrecognized. Delmont discusses the work done by African Americans who enlisted in and were drafted into the military, eager to serve but relegated to menial and subservient roles. The book also reflects on an existential dilemma for African Americans -- what do we owe to a country that treats us as only "half-American?" Is it possible to be a Black patriot? To be loyal to a country that is not loyal to you?

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