It’s hard even making this post. Another familiar headline. “Save the babies,” sang Marvin Gaye. But here we are again. Deep breath. Here’s a preview of this year’s Slow Art Day pop installation. In this case, the students’ roll ups give me hope. But so much else….?
Zoraland. I kept saying this word to myself and to my husband as we drove around Florida this past week during my Spring Break. Over several days, we made many stops in my home state. It’s the same state in which the legendary writer-anthropologist and Alabama native Zora Neale Hurston was raised. A few years… Continue reading Zoraland
When the weary eye cannot read another word, the images in this book that just arrived, and the poetry in this book, which also just arrived, are enough. While reading the intro by Edwidge Danticat to Catherine E. McKinley’s The African Lookbook, I was reminded of the Afro-Cuban woman during my 1996 visit to Cuba… Continue reading when the weary eye can’t read another word…
This week, Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust novel, which receives inspiration from her ancestral connections to the Gullah Sea Islands (and offers the back story for characters in her pivotal 1991 film Daughters of the Dust), are front in center in my “Gender, Race and Urban Space” class. I have so much to think… Continue reading dash, gendered storytelling and the gullah sea islands
This week, the graduate students enrolled in my “Gender, Race and Urban Space” course turn to a story of “war and what comes after” as offered by Clemantine Wamariya with assistance from Elizabeth Weil. Rwanda and Chicago are front and center. But so are other places, most of them on the continent of Africa. Will… Continue reading will they
As if the world needs another “Black Panther” blog entry, but I’m writing one anyway. It was that good. I finally saw the movie today after being unable to see it last week on the opening day. “Which part did you like?” I asked the young man to my right as the end credits began.… Continue reading reluctantly sharing
Yesterday I finally saw “Queen of Katwe,” a motion picture about an African girl who becomes a chess champion. I was struck by the power surrounding the word “city” as her instructor shared stories of how he felt alongside seemingly better chess players who resided in urban spaces. I was reminded again of the importance… Continue reading spring with the city in view
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