Black and Brown Feminisms in Hip Hop Media
University of Texas at San Antonio - March 4-5, 2011
Submission deadline: November 15, 2010
Updated Call for Papers
UTSA presents Black and Brown Feminisms in Hip Hop Media with keynote address by Gwendolyn Pough,
Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at Syracuse University and featured speaker G.
Henderson, Professor of English at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Black and Latina feminist scholars offer multiple ways of understanding feminist cultures that transcend
ideological borders and patriarchal conventions. More recently, Black and Latina feminists have
negotiated the positionality of the woman of color in the ever-changing world of Hip Hop since its
inception. The Black and Brown Feminisms in Hip Hop Media Conference situates Black and Latina
feminist theory in the context of Hip Hop representation to discuss ways Hip Hop music, film, and club
industries fetishize, exploit, celebrate, empower and/or disempower Black and Brown women.
The conference will feature keynote speaker and internationally acclaimed Hip Hop scholar Gwendolyn
Pough, Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at Syracuse University. Her work examines
the public sphere of Hip Hop culture and Black women’s interaction and participation in it to determine
representations of Black women in such male dominated spheres and more generally in a current
society. Some of her publications include Check It While I Wreck It: Black Womanhood, Hip-Hop Culture
and the Public Sphere (Northeastern University Press, 2004), "Personal Narrative and Rhetorics of Black
Womanhood in Hip-Hop" in Rhetoric and Ethnicity (Heinemann-Boynton/Cook, 2004), and "Do the
Ladies Run This . . .? Some Thoughts on Hip Hop Feminism" in Catching a Wave: Reclaiming Feminism for
the 21st Century (Northeastern UP, 2003).
In addition, the conference presents feature speaker Mae G. Henderson, Professor of English at
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Her writing reflects her interest in a concern with gender, race,
and performativity. Dr. Henderson is co-editor of the groundbreaking text Black Queer Studies: A Critical
Anthology (Duke UP, 2005). Her publications also include “The Stories of (O)Dessa: Stories of Complicity
and Resistance” in Female subjects in Black and White: Race, Psychoanalysis, Feminism (University of
California Press, 1997) and Borders, Boundaries, and Frames: Essays in Cultural Criticism and Cultural
Studies (Routledge, 1995).
This interdisciplinary conference will feature unpublished work on women in Hip Hop to exchange ideas,
share research, and initiate a sustained conversation by and about Black and Brown women in Hip Hop
media. Vital to this discussion is attention to the blurring lines between Black and Latina feminist
studies and a dialogue that attempts to understand an interweaving history of objectification, struggle,
and potential for agency. How do we read Black and Brown women in Hip Hop culture? What readings
of Black and Brown women other than conventional black feminist readings and Latina feminist analyses
are cogent? What theories enable those readings? Finally, what would an investigation into
autobiographical stories of video models yield? How would those narratives differ from that of more
conventional readings?
A select number of accepted papers will be included in a one-day, academic conference at the University
of Texas at San Antonio as a part of UTSA’s celebration of Women’s History Month on March 4, 2011
with a Hip Hop performance from local Texas as well as national hip hop artists on the evening of March
5, 2011. This conference will be an opportunity for presenters to share views and concerns on the
growing intersections between Black and Brown women in hip hop culture. Possible Panel Topics
Include:
Interdisciplinary Approaches to Gender and Race in Hip Hop
Colorism within Hip-Hop video culture
The New Female Entrepreneur
Negotiating Sexualities
Black and Latina Diasporas
Video Vixens or Video Models?
Female Rappers
Queer Identities
Chicana/o Rap
Alternative Models of Black Femininity
Latinas in Video Model Culture
Intersections of Video Models with Youth Culture
Performing the Black Body/ Brown Body
Reggaeton
Able-Bodied Privilege in Hip Hop Feminisms
A Case Study of Karrine Steffans
Strip Club Culture
Confessions of Video Vixens
Eroticism vs. Pornography
Women as Exchange among a Male Economy
Please submit a 500 word abstract to Kinitra Brooks and/or Marco Cervantes
blackandbrownfeminisms@gmail.com on or before November 15, 2010.
Required registration for the conference will be $40.