Black Feminist Futures
Black Studies is a longstanding interdisciplinary field focused on Black history, politics, and culture. At Concordia, there are faculty and students engaging with this field in at least eight departments. The Black Feminist Futures working group seeks to create links between faculty and students who are interested in this broad field, as well as a specific theme within it: Black feminist futures.
Black feminism has always been an important part of Black Studies, and imagining a future beyond anti-blackness and patriarchy has always been integral to it. The question of livable futures, however, has gained new attention in recent years due in part to: (1) books like Andrea Ritchie's Invisible No More that centre the policing of Black women's lives and their responses to it; (2) books like Keisha Bain's Set the World on Fire that re-examine important Black freedom struggles to show how women shaped them; and (3) new attention the Combahee River Collective (formed in 1978) and its Black queer feminist vision of liberation (see the book How We Get Free).
Organizers:
- Nathalie Batraville, Assistant Professor, Simone de Beauvoir Institute
- Françoise Naudillon, Professor, Études françaises
- Océane Jasor, Assistant Professor, Sociology and Anthropology
- Ted Rutland, Associate Professor, Geography, Planning, and Environment
- Ronald Rose-Antoinette, Postdoctoral fellow, Geography, Planning, and Environment
- Tallie Segal, PhD student, Sociology and Anthropology
- Jamilah Dei-Sharpe, MA student (will be PhD student in Fall 2019), Sociology and Anthropology
- Anthony McLachlan, MA student, Geography, Planning, and Environment.
Key Questions
- What happens, analytically and politically, when we highlight the role of Black women in Black liberation movements?
- What happens, analytically and politically, when we highlight the impact of anti-Black practices and institutions on Black women's lives?
- What could a Black feminist praxis transform Concordia? How has it already?
Activities
The major recurring event of the working group is the monthly reading group meeting. This occurs on the last Tuesday of each month. Readings are chosen as a group, and anyone who attends the meetings can suggest an article or book to read together.
The fall readings are Krug’s Fugitive Modernities and Hartman’s Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments. Winter term readings will be chosen as a group, but are likely to include King’s On the Shoals. While the reading group is the major recurring event, the most significant event of the working group is the two-day Living Black Studies conference.
This year’s conference will take place March 13-14, 2020 at Concordia. Anyone interested in attending the reading group, attending the conference, or participating in organizing the conference is invited to send an email to concordiablackstudies@gmail.com.
Fall Events
Monthly Reading Group meeting. The last Tuesday of the month from 6pm to 8pm. Meetings take place at the Intersectionality Hub, 2110 McKay Street, third floor.
Winter Events
Monthly Reading Group meeting. The last Tuesday of the month from 6pm to 8pm. Meetings take place at the Intersectionality Hub, 2110 McKay Street, third floor.
Living Black Studies conference
March 13-14, 2020. Concordia University.