At the end of Jewelle Gomez’s seminal feminist novel, The Gilda Stories, Gilda and her crew of badass queer vampires (because, of course) are faced with a dying planet Earth. Centuries of white supremacy and unbridled capitalism have wreaked havoc on human society. The wealthy have escaped off planet to colonize other worlds (because, of […]
Category: Academia
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
“What do you think I want, respect or compliance?” This was the question I posed my class this week, after I asked them to define the terms. For compliance they yelled out things like “following orders” and “obedience.” They defined “respect” as “valuing the thoughts of others” “being loyal,” and so on. I asked […]
Black Queer Trouble in Literature, Life, and the Age of OBama: Part II
Originally Delivered by Cheryl Clarke as the Kessler Lecture on Dec. 6, 2013 at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center Scenes of black queer and feminist resistance; or “forced confinement and forced mobility” Recently I said the following at a “Symposium: Black Women’s Studies and the Transformation of […]
Black Queer Trouble in Literature, Life, and the Age of OBama: Part I
Originally Delivered by Cheryl Clarke as the Kessler Lecture on Dec. 6, 2013 at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center Note: Elizabeth Lorde Rollins, my friend and sister, introduced me at the event. Thank you, Beth. Wonderful to see you again. We miss your Mother. In case I […]
Getting Crunk at Charis: Sweetwater and Supporting Feminist Bookstores!
Come one, come all! Join us in Atlanta at Charis Books and More on Friday, June 28th, 2013 at 7:30pm EST for CF Robin Boylorn’s book talk for Sweetwater: Black Women and Narratives of Resilience. The CFC is so proud of our girl Robin! Earlier this year, she published her first book with Peter […]
Getting Free & Staying Free
It might seem a bit cliché for an English professor to be all like “Beloved is one of my favorite novels,” but it’s the truth. I love that book with a fiery burning passion. It’s one of those texts that I can always go back to and that never gets old. I can open any […]
always arriving: a black scholar’s mixtape
But we knew. And our knowing was like a sister’s embrace. Sonia Sanchez, “A Letter to Dr. Martin Luther King,” homegirls and handgrenades (1984) I first sat at the feet of Sonia Sanchez at Spelman College where I was assiduously loved and educated. Sanchez was invited by the Women’s Resource and Research Center to help […]
Not that Kind of Dr.
She has a substance abuse issue, she has anxiety disorder, she had an abortion during the semester (did not tell parents), she experienced sexual abuse by older female family members, she experienced being homeless (on her on) before coming to college, she is escaping a dangerous neighborhood and has lost several friends to gun violence, […]
Trigger Warning – How to Love?: Thoughts on Wayne’s “Emmett Till” Lyrics and More
By CFs Moya and Whitney We’d initially planned to post this the monday after the Oscars but other things were more pressing. *Trigger Warning for expletives, misogyny, and violent lyrics* In the remix to Future’s Karate Chop, Lil Wayne sings the “very unfortunate” (really, Fader?) lyric that compares sex to the beating of Emmett […]