“Black” Comics as a Cultural Archive of Black Life in America

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 49-95
Author(s):  
Cathy Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
Black Feminist Thought ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
African Nation ◽  
Social Anxieties ◽  
Gendered Bodies ◽  
Black Life ◽  
Photo Essay

Set in the fictitious African nation of Wakanda, the six volumes of the Black Panther comic book weave plots that are faithful to superhero tropes and aware of Black nationalist discourses. The storylines focus on deterring white dominance, tribal warfare, and mineral exploitation. Creating characters conscious of the threats to their autonomy is an opportunity to reframe the “Black power” trope. This photo essay explores how iterations of raced and gendered figures in mainstream and independent comics are used to mediate and meditate on certain social anxieties. The images and their associated captions explore how Afrofuturism in “Black” comics not only provides illustrative cases of actual Black social life and political crossings engaged with cultural Black archives, but stimulates complex engagements with Black feminist thought in order to advance the liberation struggles of mutant, racialized, and gendered bodies seeking empowerment and social justice.

scholarly journals Urban specters

2021 ◽  
pp. 026377582110302
Author(s):  
Asha Best ◽  
Margaret M Ramírez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Black Women ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Women Artists ◽  
Social Life ◽  
The United States ◽  
Spatial Method ◽  
Urban Futures ◽  
Black Life ◽  
The Relationship

In this piece, we take up haunting as a spatial method to consider what geography can learn from ghosts. Following Avery Gordon’s theorizations of haunting as a sociological method, a consideration of the spectral offers a means of reckoning with the shadows of social life that are not always readily apparent. Drawing upon art installations in Brooklyn, NY, White Shoes (2012–2016), and Oakland, CA, House/Full of BlackWomen (2015–present), we find that in both installations, Black women artists perform hauntings, threading geographies of race, sex, and speculation across past and present. We observe how these installations operate through spectacle, embodiment, and temporal disjuncture, illuminating how Black life and labor have been central to the construction of property and urban space in the United States. In what follows, we explore the following questions: what does haunting reveal about the relationship between property, personhood, and the urban in a time of racial banishment? And the second, how might we think of haunting as a mode of refusing displacement, banishment, and archival erasure as a way of imagining “livable” urban futures in which Black life is neither static nor obsolete?

Loneliness through the lens of Black feminist love-politics: pedagogical practices amid pandemic online learning

2022 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Rifino ◽  
Kushya Sugarman
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Online Learning ◽  
Black Feminist Thought ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Teaching Experiences ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Virtual Classes ◽  
Feminist Perspectives ◽  
Literature Base

Purpose Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, including contact restrictions and the switch to virtual classes, loneliness has become a pressing concern for college students and their learning. This study aims to interrogate current discussions about college student loneliness through the lens of Black feminist love-politics to reimagine online pedagogical practices. Design/methodology/approach Using a broad literature base and anecdotes from personal teaching experiences, the authors contend that Black Feminist perspectives on love, care and solidarity can illuminate the sociopolitical dimensions of loneliness in pedagogically productive ways. Findings The authors explore various pedagogical practices that are inspired by Black feminist approaches that aim to promote solidarity, love and care in either virtual or in-person classrooms. These pedagogical suggestions result from the authors’ teaching experiences amid online learning and current literature in education. Practical implications The authors seek to support educators’ understanding of the most pervasive yet misunderstood emotional experiences of student learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper explores strategies for addressing feelings of loneliness within online learning-related contexts in higher education. This discussion will be particularly relevant for educators and students from historically marginalized populations. Originality/value This work focuses on the plight of community college students, a demographic that has not garnered enough attention in the educational research concerning this pandemic. In addition, this paper offers an account of loneliness that aligns with the political and ideological crisis of today and places it in conversation with Black feminist thought.

IntroductIon: Plenary on Black Feminist Thought

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Tempest M. Henning ◽  
Scott Aikin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Black Feminist Thought ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Feminist Thought

Haunting Wholeness: Inviting Ghosts on the Bridge So We Can Transform

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (9-10) ◽  
pp. 1022-1038
Author(s):  
Cristina M. Dominguez
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Community Member ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Way Of Knowing

In this article, I share my journey toward haunting wholeness in the social justice work that I am beginning to take up as a scholar, teacher, and community member. I evoke Avery Gordon’s notion of haunting, defining it as an experience in which “that which appears to be not there is often a seething presence, acting on and often meddling with taken-for-granted realities.” Investigating hauntings that take place in our lives can take us to a “dense site where history and subjectivity make social life.” Should we dwell and work in this site, should we take up hauntings and their “ghostly things,” I believe, as Gordon does, that we can conjure “a very particular way of knowing what has happened or is happening,” an affective and transformative way of knowing about our moving and relating in the world with others as social beings.

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