CBFS: Black Arts, Black Spaces and Black Performance
On the spatiality of Black arts and performance, Julius B. Fleming Jr. (Black Patience: Performance, Civil Rights, and the Unfinished Project of Emancipation) will share his work on performance and the Civil Rights Movement. Jo-Ann Morgan (The Black Arts Movement and the Black Panther Party in American Visual Culture) will discuss the relationship between the Black Panther Party's visual culture and the Black Arts Movement and La Donna L. Forsgren (In Search of Our Warrior Mothers: Women Dramatists of the Black Arts Movement) will present her oral histories with women in the movement. Courtney Thorsson (The Sisterhood: How a Network of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture) will discuss how a network of Black women writers transformed American culture. Teachers are eligible to receive 1.5 CTLE credits for attending Conversations in Black Freedom Studies online programs. PANELISTS Julius B. Fleming, Jr. | Washington University in St. Louis Julius B. Fleming, Jr. earned a PhD in English, and a graduate certificate in Africana studies. Specializing in Afro-diasporic literatures and cultures, he has particular interests in performance studies, black political culture, diaspora, and colonialism, especially where they intersect with race, gender, and sexuality. Fleming is the author of Black Patience: Performance, Civil Rights, and the Unfinished Project of Emancipation (NYU Press 2022). This book reconsiders the Civil Rights Movement from the perspective of black theatre. It argues that black theatrical performance—much like television and photography—was a vital technology of civil rights activism, and a crucial site of black artistic and cultural production. La Donna L. Forsgren | The University of Notre Dame La Donna L. Forsgren is an Associate Professor of Film, Television, and Theatre with a joint appointment in the Department of Africana Studies. She is concurrent faculty in the Gender Studies Program at the University of Notre Dame. She serves as Editor for Theatre Survey. Her first book, In Search of Our Warrior Mothers: Women Dramatists of the Black Arts Movement (Northwestern UP, 2018), investigates the works and careers of Black women playwrights: Martie Evans-Charles, J.e. Franklin, Sonia Sanchez, and Barbara Ann Teer. Her second book, Sistuhs in the Struggle: An Oral History of the Black Arts Movement Theatre and Performance (Northwestern UP, 2020), is a finalist for ATHE’s Outstanding Book Award (2021). Her current book project, Black Girlhood on the Musical Theatre Stage (under contract, Oxford UP), explores Black queer feminist spectatorship and representations of Black girlhood in contemporary musical theatre. Jo-Ann Morgan | West Illinois University Jo-Ann Morgan is Professor Emeritus of African American Studies and Art History at Western Illinois University. She authored The Black Arts Movement and the Black Panther Party in American Visual Culture (Routledge, 2019) and Uncle Tom’s Cabin as Visual Culture, winner of the Seaborg Award for Civil War Scholarship in 2008. Prior to becoming a scholar of African American art and culture, Morgan graduated from the University of Wyoming in studio art (MFA 1988) and remained active as a visual artist while a doctoral student at UCLA (PhD 1997). After two decades of university teaching, in 2020 Morgan reestablished a full-time studio practice, creating stitched fabric compositions on themes related to social justice and gun violence. Courtney Thorsson | University of Oregon Courtney Thorsson teaches, studies, and writes about African American literature at the University of Oregon, where she is a Professor of English and a Faculty Fellow in the Clark Honors College. She is the author of Women’s Work: Nationalism and Contemporary African American Women's Novels and essays in Callaloo, African American Review, MELUS, Gastronomica, Contemporary Literature, Legacy, and Public Books. ABOUT CONVERSATIONS IN BLACK FREEDOM STUDIES The founding curators of this series, Professors Jeanne Theoharis (Brooklyn College/CUNY) and Komozi Woodard (Sarah Lawrence College), introduced a new paradigm that challenged the older geography, leadership, ideology, culture and chronology of Civil Rights historiography. Jeanne Theoharis continues in her role and is joined by Robyn C. Spencer-Antoine (Wayne State University) ) as co-curator. Komozi Woodard continues to advise the series from an emeritus position. Discussions take place on the first Thursday of each month. Learn more: http://www.blackfreedomstudies.org
