2014 African American Studies and Research Center
Symposium
Purdue University
November 20 – 22, 2014
DRAFT SCHEDULE DRAFT
Friday 9:00 – 10:00
Wilfredo Gomez, Cultural Foundation of Education, Syracuse University
“America at the Dawn of Illmatic: Afro-Futurism and the Creative Genius of Nasir Jones
Adwoa Afful, Humanities, York Univesrsity
Itinerant Futures: Afro Futurist Feminism, African Migrant Subjectivities and Black Countercultural Production
&
Anthony Ramos, American Studies, Purdue University
Marlyn Thomas, Department of English, Morgan State University
The Coming of John (Anna): Lauren Olamina and Dubois’ Cautionary Tale for Black Leaders
Friday 10:15 – 11:45
Race and Identity in the Supernatural and the Heroic
Clayton D. Coleman, Department of English, University of Delaware
“Vampires, Zombies and Alien Prophets: Post-Apocalyptic Utopian Black Bodies”
Christian Keeve, African-American Studies Department, Northwestern University
“An Afrofuturistic Examination of Electromagnetism and Android Embodiment in the Black Superheroic”
Jerry Rafiki Jenkins, Professor of English and Multicultural Studies, Palomar College
“Moynihanian Pan-Africanism in Brandon Massey’s Dark Corner”
&
Afrofuturism and Pedagogy
Jolivette Anderson-Douoning, American Studies Program, Purdue University
“Black Cultural Centers in Third Space: Developing C. E. L. L’s (Culture Education Living Laboratories) in
Higher Education”
D. Denenge Akpem
“The MARS Project”
Eyatta Fischer, Department of Teaching and Learning, Ohio State University
“Resisting the Canon: Afro-futurism in the English Language Arts Classroom”
Lunch 12:00 – 2:00
2:15- 3:45
Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Narratives of Afrofuturistic Past, Present, and Future
Jeffrey Allen Tucker, Department of English, University of Rochester
“(Beyond) the Borders of the Neo-Slave Narrative: Nalo Hopkinson’s The Salt Roads”
Aria S. Halliday, American Studies Program, Purdue University
“Trauma and the Formation of Radical Black Girl Subjectivity in Nalo Hopkinson’s Midnight Robber”
Olubukola Ogundipe, Women’s and Gender Studies, DePaul University
“The Afrogaze: Graphic Narratives, Storytelling and Afrofuturist Possibilities”
&
Race, Gender, and Religion in Contemporary Dramatic Texts
Jose Santos de Paiva, Federal University Minas Gerais
“The Darkening of Medea: Geographies of Race, (Dis) Placement and Identity in Agostinho Olavo’s Alem do
Rio (Medea)”
Juliana Borges Oliveria de Morais, Federal University Minas Gerais
“Dissecting Colors and Rainbows in For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide when the Rainbow is
Enuf”
Delzi Alves Laranjeira, State University of Minas Gerais-UEMG
“Christianity and Black Masculinity in James Baldwin’s Blues for Mister Charlie and August Wilson’s Joe
Turner’s Come and Gone”
Antonio Tillis, Associate Professor and Chair, African and African-American Studies, Dartmouth College-Moderator
4:00 to 5:30
Afrofuturism’s Subversive Voice
Matthew Joseph
“Race in Space: Parliament-Funkadelic’s Black Utopia”
Amber Hendrix, University of Memphis
“Rainbows, Moonbeams, and Orange Snow—Stevie Wonder’s Spacetime Continuum”
Marlo D. David, Assistant Professor, Department of English and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies,
Purdue University
“‘Black Girls from the Future’: Afrofuturist Body Politics in Black Women’s Rock and Punk Performance”
6:00
Reception
Saturday November 22, 2014
9:00 – 10:15
Visions and instruments for enhancing the lives of black males
Kevin Brooks, the Ohio State University
Mentoring Black Males
Rondee Gaines, Miami University, Ohio
The Dialetics of Radicalism and Reformism: An Africana Womanist Analysis on Trayvon Martin’s Death
Dwight Lewis, Purdue University
Cultivating Black Male Individual and Group Identity Development in Higher Education
&
Crossing and Contestations: Feminism, Womanis, and Disability in Speculative and
Fantasy Fiction by Women Writers of the African Diaspora
Marlene Allen, Assistant Professor, Columbus State University
“Kindred Spirits: The Womanist Fantasy Fiction of Pauline Hopkins, Octavia Butler, and Tananarive Due”
Lesley Feracho, Associate Professor of Romance Languages and African American Studies, University of
Georgia
“Engaging Diaspora: Race, Gender, and Speculative Fiction of the African Diaspora”
Theri Pickens, Assistant Professor of English, Bates College
“Octavia Butler and a Disability Centered Aesthetic”
10:30 – 11:45
Afrofuturistic Revisions of Blackness through Film and Literature
James B. Peterson, Africana Studies and English, Lehigh University
“Speaking a Strange Dialect: Black Graphix, Afrofuturism and Nnedi Okorafor’s Magical Negro”
Keevan Roberston, Wilfrid Laurier University
“Searching for Drexciya: Speculative Alternative Histories and Reimagining Afrodiasporic Folklore in Black
Media”
Layla Ben-Ali, University of Pennsylvania
“Mirror, Mirage: Reflexivity and the Ephemeralities of Black Experimental Film”
&
Afrofuturism and Queerness
Laura A. Harris, Professor of English, Pitzer College
“The Queeer Art of Death: Time Traveling from the Harlem Renaissance to a Black Queer Afro-Future”
J. Brendan Shaw, Department of English, Ohio State University
“Looking for a Church in the Wild: Imagining a Revolutionary Future”
Dalena Hunter, Information Studies and Librarian, UCLA Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American
Studies
“Out of the Archival Closet: Opening the Historical Record to Black Lesbian Lives”