Concurrent Sessions

 

Session 1: Thursday, November 2

8:30 a.m. – 9:45 a.m.

Panel 1: Jackson Convention Complex 201/202
Mentorship through Writing in the Black Female Intellectual Tradition

“Black Women Scholars, Writers, Activists and Theory as Liberatory Practice: An Examination of the Work of bell hooks and Audre Lorde” April Caddell, Highlander Research and Education Center                      

“Mentorship Through Writing in the Black Female Intellectual Tradition” Alison Caddell, Purdue University

“Centering the Voices of Black Women in Psychology” Gabrielle Smith, Texas Woman’s University

Chair: Danielle Littlefield, Jackson State University

 

Session 1: Thursday, November 2

8:30 a.m. – 9:45 a.m.

Panel 2: Jackson Convention Complex 203/204
Dear Sister: Black Literary Womanhood and Kinship

“Womanist Poetics of Black Love: Sonia Sanchez and the Creation of Nourishing Spaces through Black Women’s Artistic Expression” Ravá Shelyn Chapman, Emory University

“The Poetry and Sisterhood of Mari Evans” Donna Akiba Sullivan Harper, Spelman College

“A Southern Song For My People: Seeing Self in the Works of Jesmyn Ward” Kemeshia Randle Swanson, Gardner-Webb University

Chair: Angela Stewart, Jackson State University

 

Session 1: Thursday, November 2

8:30 a.m. – 9:45 a.m.

Panel 3: Jackson Convention Complex 205/206
Creative Reflections on Phillis Wheatley

“How Strangely Changed, or Phillis Wheatley in Niobean Myth & Memory: An Essay in Verse” drea brown, Texas State University

“Show & Tell: Ekphrastic Poems in the Spirit of Wheatley” Ming Joi Washington, Spelman College

“Black Voices Under White Roofs: Transracial Adoptee Authors 250 Years after Phillis Wheatley” Sullivan Summer, Brooklyn Poets

“I Got Me a Voice” Omofolabo Ajayi-Soyinka, University of Kansas

Chair: Kedra James, Tougaloo College

 

Session 1: Thursday, November 2

8:30 a.m. – 9:45 a.m.

Panel 4: Jackson Convention Complex 207/208
Interpreting Resistance and Ancestral Preservation of Afro-Latin Spiritual Systems through Visual Documentation

Vanessa Charlot, University of Mississippi

Charlene Desir, Nova Southeastern University

Marquita Smith, University of Mississippi

Chair: Jaylin Smith, University of Mississippi

 

Session 2: Thursday, November 2

11:15 a.m. – 12:15 pm.

Panel 5: Jackson Convention Complex 201/202
Black Womxn Writing Communities

“#InForUs, In For Me: A Shared Experience From A Black Womxn Writing Group Member” Tiffany Caesar, San Francisco State University

“Locating the Under-Rhythm of Co-Writing Communities” Desireé R. Melonas, University of California, Riverside

“Breaking up Fallow Ground: Sowing Seeds of Mentorship and Kinship to create Social, Academic, and Political Community for Black Women Writers” Charlotte C. Teague, Alabama A&M University

Chair: Charlotte C. Teague, Alabama A&M University

 

Session 2: Thursday, November 2

11:15 a.m. – 12:15 pm.

Panel 6: Jackson Convention Complex 203/204
Autobiography, Storytelling, Archives, and Power

“On Resistance to Plantation Power” Latrice Johnson, University of Mississippi

“Kindred Voices: Black Womanist Orality Rooted in Empowerment” Laura Miller, Jackson State University

“The Women of the Fisk University Library: Archival Practice and Institutional Care in the Post-Civil Rights Era” Magana Kabugi, Fisk University

Chair: Kristina N. Phillips, Jackson State University

 

Session 2: Thursday, November 2

11:15 a.m. – 12:15 pm.

Panel 7: Jackson Convention Complex 205/206
Texas Southern University Collective: African American Women Transforming the Houston Art Scene

Analisa Esther, Texas Southern University

Kaylene McCoy-Mosley, Texas Southern University

Rita Reyes, Texas Southern University

Chair: Alvia Wardlaw, Texas Southern University

 

Session 2: Thursday, November 2

11:15 a.m. – 12:15 pm.

Panel 8: Jackson Convention Complex 207/208
50 Years Later: Reflections on the Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival

“My Joy and Pain Are Bound One on One”: On Joy in Black Women’s Poetry” Marta Werbanowska, University of Vienna

“Phillis Wheatley’s ‘Dual Song’: Naomi Long Madgett’s Black Feminist Poetics at the 1973 Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival” Morgan McComb, University of Mississippi

“‘An Occasion of Great Distinction’: Highlighting the Historical & Commemorative Significance of the 1973 Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival” Alexandria Russell, Harvard University

Chair: Preselfannie McDaniels, Jackson State University

 

Session 3: Thursday, November 2

2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.

Panel 9: Jackson Convention Complex 201/202
“Wrong is Not my Name”: Practicing Archival Justice for Black Women and Girls in Creative Work and Scholarship

DaMaris B. Hill, University of Kentucky

N’Kosi Oates, James Madison University

Chet’la Sebree, George Washington University

Courtney Faye Taylor, Agnes Scott College

Chair: L. Renée, Furious Flower Poetry Center at James Madison University

 

Session 3: Thursday, November 2

2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.

Panel 10: Jackson Convention Complex 203/204
Black Women’s Literary Friendships

“‘June Was the Catalyst’: June Jordan, the Sisterhood, and Literary Activism” Courtney Thorsson, University of Oregon

“‘Miss Ebony First’ Takes a Trowel: Nellie Y. McKay, Creative Collaboration, and the Excavation of Black Women’s Literature” Shanna G. Benjamin, Wake Forest University

“In Friendship: Maya Angelou and Abbey Lincoln’s Radical Intimacies” Soyica Colbert, Georgetown University

“Love and Stuff: Toni Morrison’s Editorial Friendships with Barbara Chase-Riboud, Lucille Clifton, and Toni Cade Bambara” Dana A. Williams, Howard University

Chair: Brandi Newkirk-Turner, Jackson State University

 

Session 3: Thursday, November 2

2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.

Panel 11: Jackson Convention Complex 205/206
Working through the Federal Writers’ Project: Margaret Walker and Beyond
Poetry, Place, Archive, and Representation in the Black Metropolis

“Oral History, Zora Neale Hurston and the FWP” Alphine Jefferson, Randolph-Macon College

“Writers As Workers: 50^th Anniversary Reunion of the Chicago Writers’ Project” Alan Harris Stein, Oral History Association

“Care, Curation, and Creativity in Margaret Walker’s World-building” Seretha Williams, Augusta University

Chair: Alissa Rae Funderburk, Jackson State University

 

Session 3: Thursday, November 2

2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.

Panel 12: Jackson Convention Complex 207/208
The Afterlive(s) of Phillis Wheatley

“Word as Bond: Phyllis Wheatley’s Influence on Black Women Poets of the Black Arts Movement (BAM)” Alonge O. Clarkson, Temple University

“What the Arc of Phillis Wheatley’s Influence Demonstrates to Students” Candis Pizzetta, Jackson State University

“The Monumental Quest of an African Warrior Queen … We Call Phillis Wheatley” C. Sade Turnipseed, Jackson State University

“Phillis Wheatley: From Black Girlhood to Ancestral Intermediary” Shanna Smith, Jackson State University

Chair: Diane Williams, Mississippi Arts Commission (retired)

 

Session 4: Friday, November 3

8:30 a.m. – 9:45 a.m.

Panel 13: Jackson Convention Complex 201/202
Remembering Phillis Wheatley: Mothering Literary Traditions

“Wheatley’s Mneme: Remembering Black Girlhood” Stephanie Rambo, George Mason University

“Sisters in Bloom: Tending to the Garden of Sisterhood” Nicole Carr, Texas A&M University – San Antonio

“‘Let Harpocrates Live’: A Crucial New Variant of Phillis Wheatley’s ‘On Virtue’” Wendy Raphael Roberts, University at Albany – SUNY

“Tracing the Tradition of the Wheatley Poem” Laura Vrana, University of South Alabama

Chair: Miranda Freeman, Tougaloo College

 

Session 4: Friday, November 3

8:30 a.m. – 9:45 a.m.

Panel 14: Jackson Convention Complex 203/204
My ‘Tu’ Lips Quip: Critical Perspectives on Language in Black Women’s Writing

“Look What She Do wit Her Tongue: Poetics of Pimpin and the Black Erotic Aesthetic” Brandice P. Walker, Howard University

“Butt of the Joke: Negotiating My Hips” Victoria M. Washington, Texas Christian University

“Southern Girls: Articulating Radical Black Female Pleasure & Sweetness” Kaelyn Conley, Jackson State University

“Considering Floral Images as Tools for Crafting Love Ethics in the Rural Literature of African American Women Writers” Sarah Jenkins, Howard University

“Margaret Walker On Trial: Black Women’s Poetic Injustice in the American Literary Canon” Paola Yuli, Howard University

Chair: Shanna Smith, Jackson State University

 

Session 4: Friday, November 3

8:30 a.m. – 9:45 a.m.

Panel 15: Jackson Convention Complex 205/206
And the Beat Goes On: Young Writers Write the Future

Kaitlyn Taylor, Jackson State University

Treasure White, Jackson State University

Grace Ann Elinski, Jackson State University

Chair: RaShell Smith-Spears, Jackson State University

 

Session 4: Friday, November 3

8:30 a.m. – 9:45 a.m.

Panel 16: Jackson Convention Complex 207/208
The Living Legacy of Margaret Walker

“‘You Will Be Moved’: Exploring Black Liberation Theology in the Work of Margaret Walker Alexander and Prince” Liegh McInnis, Psychedelic Literature

“Dear Ruth, Always Sincerely Margaret: Tracing Black Women’s Poetry Networks in and around Jackson, Mississippi” Bria Paige, Rutgers University, New Brunswick

“Inheriting Margaret Walker’s Legacy: Recovering Unsung Black Women in Commercial Biographical Historical Fiction” Piper Huguley, Clark Atlanta University

Chair: Garrad Lee, Jackson State University

 

Session 5: Friday, November 3

11:15 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.

Panel 17: Jackson Convention Complex 201/202
Black Women Writers and Orators in the Nineteenth Century

“Stitching Myself Together: Sojourner Truth and Making a Self” Tikenya Foster-Singletary, Clark Atlanta University

“The Liberator: A Political Pulpit for Radical Equality” Olivia Simoni, Duke University

“Frances Ellen Watkins Harper: Reading Presence through Archival Absence” Lauren Barnes, Penn State University

Chair: Christina Thomas, Jackson State University

 

Session 5: Friday, November 3

11:15 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.

Panel 18: Jackson Convention Complex 203/204
For Their People: 21^st Century Creative Reinterpretations of Phillis Wheatley and Margaret Walker

“Phillis in London: Portrait of the Artist as an Enslaved Female Poet” Ade Solanke, Spora Stories/University of Greenwich

“Margaret Walker ‘For My People’ Song Cycle” Randy Klein, Composer/Pianist

“The Deal of a Lifetime”

“Table Talk”

“Halloween”

Barbara Brewster Lewis, University of Massachusetts, Boston

Chair: Harry Mathurin-Cecil, Jackson State University

 

Session 5: Friday, November 3

11:15 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.

Panel 19: Jackson Convention Complex 205/206
Original Poetry

 “On Asking My Mother About Winter 1990”

“Ghazal for Stateless Bodies” Abhijit Sarmah, University of Georgia

“(S)istern and the Soaked Bones” Madison ‘Mocha’ Hunter, University of Memphis

“The Black Woman’s Got Something to Say” Jasmine Stansberry, University of Alabama

“Our Stories, Our Lives, Our Way” Janeth R. Jackson, University of Mississippi

Chair: helen crump, Jackson State University

 

 

Session 5: Friday, November 3

11:15 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.

Panel 20: Jackson Convention Complex 207/208
Phillis Wheatley Speaks Across the Ages: A Staged Reading

Written by Carole E. Gregory, City University of New York

Directed by Yolanda Williams, Jackson State University

Performed by Students of the Jackson State Department of Speech Communication and Theatre 

Chair: Yolanda Williams, Jackson State University

 

Session 6: Friday, November 3

2:45 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Panel 21: Jackson Convention Complex 201/202
Black Radio at HBCUs: Engaging and Sustaining Communities

Jocelyn Robinson, WYSO/Miami Valley Public Media-HBCU Radio Preservation Project

Marquita Smith, University of Mississippi

Dorothy Bland, University of North Texas

Chair: Delila Nakaidinae, University of Mississippi

 

Session 6: Friday, November 3

2:45 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Panel 22: Jackson Convention Complex 203/204
Teaching Wheatley in the University Classroom: A Conversation Among Poets and Scholars

drea brown, Texas State University

Kwoya Fagin Maples, University of Alabama

Sam Plasencia, Colby College

Caroline Wigginton, University of Mississippi

Chair: Derrick Harriell, University of Mississippi

 

Session 6: Friday, November 3

2:45 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Panel 23: Jackson Convention Complex 205/206
Original Creative Writing

“With Sisterly Affection: Memorializing Black Femme Poets in Philadelphia” Yolanda Wisher and Trapeta B. Mayson, The Clearing Collective

“Shattering” Juhanna Rogers, Goddard College

“A Hallow’s Here” Theron Wilkerson, Auburn University

Chair: Brittany Myburgh, Jackson State University

 

Session 6: Friday, November 3

2:45 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Panel 24: Jackson Convention Complex 207/208
Writing In & Through the Legacy of Black Women Poets

“The Theme Song of the Chicago Colored Girl – Singing Along with Mama Gwen” Patricia Smith, Princeton University

“Our Grace, Sarcophilous” Duriel E. Harris, Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora at Illinois State University

“A Poet’s Libretto: June Jordan’s I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky” Arisa White, Colby College

“What Did I See to Be? Writing in the Spirit of Lucille Clifton” Lauren K. Alleyne, Furious Flower Poetry Center at James Madison University

Chair: Lauren K. Alleyne, Furious Flower Poetry Center at James Madison University