The Africana Studies Group of
The Graduate Center, The City University of New York
presents
"Black Feminisms”
Friday, March 12, 2004 / 8:30am - 7:00pm
The Graduate Center, CUNY
365 Fifth Avenue, The Concourse Level
New York, New York 10016
Sponsored by The Graduate Center’s Women’s Studies Certificate Program, The Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean, and Continuing Education and Public Programs
Co-sponsored by Baruch College, The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies,
The Doctoral Students Council of The Graduate Center, The Feminist Studies Group of The Graduate Center,
The History Program of The Graduate Center, Lehman College, The Office of Educational Opportunity
and Diversity Program at The Graduate Center, QUNY of The Graduate Center, and
The Weissman School of Arts and Sciences at Baruch College
Conference Schedule
8:30 - 9:30 Concourse Lobby: Coffee and Registration
9:30 - 9:45 Proshansky Auditorium: Greetings and Opening Remarks
Lise A. Esdaile, The Graduate Center
Frances Degen Horowitz, President, The Graduate Center
9:45 – 11:15 Proshansky Auditorium: Keynote Address
“Anxious History and the Rise of Black Feminist Literary Studies”
Ann duCille, Professor of English and African American Studies and
William R. Kenan Professor of the Humanities, Wesleyan University
11:30 – 1:00 Session I
Room C198 Visual Art
Moderator Margaret Rose Vendryes, York College and The Graduate Center
“The Special Charms of a Negress: Kara Walker and Her Legion of Lost, Little Black Girls”
Aliyyah I. Abdur-Rahman, New York University
“Proper Responses to Naturalized Imagery or Embodied Viewers and Upset Binaries: Performance Video by Susan Smith-Pinelo"
Leiger Biederman, University of California, Los Angeles
“Portraits of the Past, Imagined Now: Reading the Photography of Carrie Mae Weems”
Kimberly Lamm, University of Washington
Room C-- Bodies I
Moderator Robert Reid-Pharr, The Graduate Center
“Looking for My Trumpet: Imaginings of the Black Transgender in Jazz"
Robert Diaz, The Graduate Center
“Feminist Masculinities and the Black Drag King”
Courtney D. Johnson, University of California, Los Angeles
“Is Fat a Black Feminist Issue?: The Importance of the Black Female in Discourses about Gender, Race, and Weight”
Felice Blake Klieven, University of California, Santa Cruz
Room C-- Health
Moderator Leith Mullings, The Graduate Center
“The Impact of AIDS on Women: A Discussion of the Feminist Construction of AIDS”
Angelique C. Harris, The Graduate Center
“Rejoining Our Bodies: Preliminary Observations in Black Women’s Health and Black Feminist Thought in Brazil”
Celeste Henery, University of Texas, Austin
“Black Feminism and Welfare Politics in the 1960s”
Premilla Nadasen, Queens College
Room C-- Hip Hop - Womanist/Feminist Theories
Moderator Alex Welcome, The Graduate Center
“Right Hand High for Ya: A Hip Hop Womanist’s Perspective”
Kamiikia Alexander, Miami University
“Using/Living Hip-Hop/Feminism”
Aisha S. Durham, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
“Hip Hop Feminism?”
Gwendolyn Pough, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Room C202 Periodicals
Moderator Lise Esdaile, The Graduate Center
“The Politics of African-American Feminine Beauty in Ebony Magazine, The 1960s and 1970s”
Monika Gosin, University of California, San Diego
“Fashion Forward: The Future of Black Women in the Fashion World”
Foxey King, Borough of Manhattan Community College
“Seeds of Sisterhood: The Black Feminist Impulse in Mass-Market Romance Periodicals”
Rebecca Williams, The Graduate Center
Room C-- Transnational Perspectives on Black Feminist Writing
Moderator Jill Toliver, The Graduate Center
“Developing Diaspora: The Impact of Two West African Women”
Tuzyline Jita Allan, Baruch Collge
“A Black Feminist Reading of Maryse Conde’s Tituba”
Simone Alexander, Seton Hall University
“Jameson, Allegory, and Feminist Fictions by African Women Writers”
Susan Andrade, Columbia University
“Michelle Cliff’s Transnational Feminism in Free Enterprise”
Barbara J. Webb, Hunter College and The Graduate Center
Room C-- Revisiting "Black Feminist Thought": A Roundtable
Moderator Michele Wallace, City College and The Graduate Center
Margaret Morris, Mercy College
Alexandra Wagner, The Graduate Center
Tracyann Williams, The New School for Social Research
Room C201 Social Movements
Moderator Martia Goodson, Baruch College
“BFTA: Black Feminist Thought in Action: Black Women’s Leadership During the Civil Rights Movement”
Karen Jackson-Weaver, Columbia University
“Florynce ‘Flo’ Kennedy and Black Feminist Politics in Postwar America”
Sherie Williams Randolph, New York University
“The Dialogue Between the Black Power Movement and the Women’s Liberation Movement: A Historiographical Analysis of the Male Position”
Marshawn Wolley, Indiana University, Bloomington
1:00 – 2:15 Lunch
2:15 - 3:45 Session II
Room C-- Women of Color in the Academy
Moderator Andrea Queeley, The Graduate Center
“Activism of Claiming Space: The CUNY Graduate Center Women of Color Network”
Stephanie Campos, The Graduate Center
"Mothers and Significant Others: Making Space for Real Lives"
Rosie Diaz, The Graduate Center
"Jabbering Hyenas, Hysterics, and the Politics of Embodied Speech"
Christina Galindo, SUNY at Stony Brook
"Speaking Up and Speaking Out: Talking Race and Gender within the CUNY System"
Tasha Prosper, City College of New York
Room C-- African Women and Activism
Moderator Joyce Abunaw, University of Connecticut, Storrs, and filmmaker (Potent Secrets)
“African Women Reclaiming Indigenous Feminist Cultures: From Local Organizing to Global Networking”
Bertrade Ngo-Ngijol Banoum, Lehman College
“Warriors Without Walls” The Rise of Transnational African Feminism”
M. Bahati Kuumba, Spelman College
“From Wise Women to Mutilated Hag: Towards an African Feminist Analysis of Witchcraft in Ghana”
Laura Truxler, Florida Atlantic University
Room C-- Family
Moderator Natalie Bennett, University of Nebraska, Omaha
“Colonization and Reproductive Freedom”
Gina D’Andrea, George Washington University
“Parenting from the Margins: Black Lesbian Families”
Doug Meyer, The Graduate Center
“Invisible Families of New York: Gay Relationships and Motherhood among Black and Latina Women”
Mignon R. Moore, Columbia University
Room C202 The Harlem Renaissance
Moderator Lisa Brundage, The Graduate Center
“Cracked Plate, Crystal Glass: Mothers as Mirrors in Simone Schwarz-Bart’s The Bridge of Beyond and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God”
Tisha Ulmer, The Graduate Center
“‘Hacking at a Leaf’: Modernism and Feminism in Maud Martha”
Lucas Volger, Hunter College
“Basement Theater in the Harlem Renaissance”
Kate Wilson, The Graduate Center
Room C-- Literature I
Moderator Jill Toliver, The Graduate Center
“Audre Lorde: Sexuality and the Quest for Identity”
Ricardia Bramley, Hunter College
“Mothers of Color: Partis Sequitur Ventrem and the Birth of African-American Identity”
John Honerkamp, New York University
“The Law and Its Transgression: Toni Morrison’s Paradise and the ‘Post’ Black Feminism”
Noelle Morrisette, Lehman College
Room C197 Media II
Moderator Katrina Scott, Graduate Center
“Media Appearance Versus Legal Reality: Women Judges in Contemporary Television Reality Court Shows”
Taunya Lovell Banks, University of Maryland
“Ain’t I a Woman?: Representation of African American Women During the ‘Golden Age’ of Radio and the Feminist Movement”
Kamille A. Gentles, University of Michigan
“Finding the Lesbian: Representing Same Sex Desire in African American Theatre and Film”
Raquel L. Monroe, University of California, Los Angeles
Room C203 Transnational Literature
Moderator Brenda Henry-Offor, The Graduate Center
“Overcoming the Silence: The Erotic in Audre Lorde and Mfron Essien”
Kazembe Bulagoon
“The Inner Strength Within Caribbean Women”
Abigail Lyons, Lehman College
“Catastrophic and Self-Organizing Fictions of Afro-Futurism”
Jamie Skye Bianco, The Graduate Center
4:00 - 5:30 Session III
Room C-- African Writers
Moderator Bertrade Ngo-Ngijol Banoum, Lehman College
Ama Ata Aidoo: Nationalism and Feminism in Our Sister Killjoy”
Yogita Goyal, University of California, Los Angeles and Schomburg Scholar in Residence
“Being and Totality: Ontology and Universality in Bessie Head’s A Question of Power”
LaRose Parris, The Graduate Center
“Beyond the Binary: Ambiguities Between Victimhood and Agency in Ama Ata Aidoo’s Changes and Mariama Bâ’s So Long A Letter”
Z’étoile Imma/Starr Aché Bernard, Brooklyn College
Room C198 Bodies II - Media
Moderator Meena Alexander, Hunter College and The Graduate Center
“Living Flag”/ “Rent-a-Negro.com”
damali ayo, Conceptual Artist
“Between ‘Minority Consciousness,’ ‘Mass Culture,’ Hope, and Despair: A Tentative Theoretical Exploration of Mediated Bodies in Communication and Community”
Malini Cadambi and Christopher Smith, The New School for Social Research
“Impure Sacred: Lynching Rituals as Community Performances”
Rebekah Sheldon, The Graduate Center
Room C-- Theory
Moderator Anne P. Rice, Lehman College
“Black Feminists Gaze Back: Coloring the Investments in Whiteness”
Tiffany Willoughby-Herard, University of California, San Diego
The Womanist Idea: Explaining Its Persistence, Revealing Its Scope, and Articulating Its Relevance in the New Millennium”
Layli Phillips, Georgia State University
“Black Female Sexual Agency in a Post?-Black Feminist Age”
Kimberly Springer, King’s College, London
Room C-- On the Fringe of Feminism
Moderator To be announced
"Uniting My Fragmented Nigerian/Black/Dyke/Poet Self Thru Performance"
Yvonne O. Etaghene
"(Black) Feminist in the Centerfold: Experiments with Post-(Black) Feminism"
Shelly Eversley, Baruch College
“Black Sexual Politics in a Post-(Black)-Feminist Moment: Reading Reginald McNight’s He Sleeps”
Candice Jenkins, Hunter College
Proshansky Hip Hop II
Moderator Angelique C. Harris, The Graduate Center
“‘The Magic Clit’: Women Rappers Writing the Body and Sexuality”
LaKisha Simmons, University of Michigan
“Coloring Outside the Lines: Missy Elliot and the Black Female Identity”
Janani Subramanian, University of Southern California
“The Erotic as Instrumentation: A Class-Based Comparative Analysis of the Blues Women’s and Lil’ Kim’s Strategic Utilization of Sexuality”
Jennifer R. Warren, Penn State University
Room C203 Transnational - The Caribbean
Moderator Sophie Saint-Just, The Graduate Center
“Public Enemy, Public Enmity: Marlene Nourbese Philip's Black Feminist Canadianite"
Nancy Kang, University of Toronto
“'Caught in the Middle': The Construction, Transformation, and Expression of Identity among Young Haitian Females in Montreal"
Scooter E. F. Pégram, Indiana University Northwest
“Women in Colonial Trinidad: Colonial Formulations of Tradition and Emerging Patterns of Resistance among Black and Indian Women in Trinidad"
Seema Srinath, The New School for Social Research
Room C-- Women in Prison: Slavery Was Never Abolished: A Roundtable
Moderator Patricia T. Clough, The Graduate Center
Johanna DuBois, Hunter-Brookdale School of Health Professions
Damaris McDonald, INVEST/Bailey House, Inc.
Vivian D. Nixon, Fellow, The College and Community Fellowship Program
Christina Voight, Open Society Institute, Criminal Justice Initiative
5:45 Proshansky Auditorium
"Black Feminism in the New Millennium: A Roundtable"
Moderator Lise Esdaile,, The Graduate Center
Shelly Eversley, Baruch College, author of The "Real" Negro: A Question of Authenticity in Twentieth-Century African American Literature and the forthcoming Integration and Its Discontents
Margo Jefferson, New York Times theatre critic, 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Journalism
Leith Mullings, Graduate Center Presidential Professor, Anthropology, author of On Our Own Terms: Race, Class, and Gender in the Lives of African American Women and African-American Thought: Social and Political Perspectives from Slavery to the Present
Kim Osario, publisher and editor-in-chief, The Source
Michele Wallace, author of Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman, Invisibility Blues, and Dark Designs and Visual Culture
Many thanks to our moderators:
Joyce Abunaw, Meena Alexander, Natalie Bennett, Lisa Brundage, Patricia Clough,
Lise Esdaile, Martia Goodson, Angelique C. Harris, Brenda Henry-Offor, Leith Mullings,
Bertrade Ngo-Ngijol Banoum, Andrea Queeley, Robert Reid-Pharr, Anne P. Rice, Sophie Saint-Just,
Katrina Scott, Jill Toliver, Margaret Rose Vendryes, Michele Wallace, and Alex Welcome
Many thanks to our volunteers!
Linda Camaransa, Rachel Ihara, Amira Mustapha, Samina Shahidi-McDonald, Alia Tyner, and Maria Uribe
Many, many thanks to those whose financial contributions helped make this event possible:
The Africana Studies Group of The Graduate Center, The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, Patricia P. Clough and The Women’s Studies Certificate Program of The Graduate Center, James de Jongh and The Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean, Dean Myrna Chase and the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences at Baruch College, The Feminist Studies Group of The Graduate Center, Joshua Freeman and The History Program of The Graduate Center, Dean Margaret Gottlieb and Lehman College, and QUNY of The Graduate Center, and Associate Provost Dennis Slavin and Baruch College
Thanks to Jason Offor for his help and Travis Ward for designing our flyer.
Special Thanks to Acting Assistant Provost Gail Smith and The Graduate Center’s Office
of Educational Opportunity and Diversity Program for sponsoring our breakfast!
Thanks also to David Levine and The Graduate Center's Continuing
Education Office for publicity and for handling registration.
Special Thanks To Our Dedicated Conference Committee:
Jamila Brathwaite, LeRonn Brooks, Lisa Brundage, Marsham Castro, Lise Esdaile,
Shelly Eversley, Angelique C. Harris, Brenda Henry-Offor, Kevin McGruder, Tyler Schmidt,
Katrina Scott, Elizabeth Smalls, and Jamie Skye Bianco
