Signaling such recent activist and aesthetic concepts in the work of Kara Walker, Childish Gambino, BLM, Janelle Monáe, and Kendrick Lamar, and marking the exit of the Obama Administration and the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, this anthology explores the role of African American arts in shaping the future, and further informing new directions we might take in honoring and protecting the success of African Americans in the U.S. The essays in African American Arts: Activism, Aesthetics, and Futurity engage readers in critical conversations by activists, scholars, and artists reflecting on national and transnational legacies of African American activism as an element of artistic practice, particularly as they concern artistic expression and race relations, and the intersections of creative processes with economic, sociological, and psychological inequalities. Scholars from the fields of communication, theater, queer studies, media studies, performance studies, dance, visual arts, and fashion design, to name a few, collectively ask: What are the connections between African American arts, the work of social justice, and creative processes? If we conceive the arts as critical to the legacy of Black activism in the United States, how can we use that construct to inform our understanding of the complicated intersections of African American activism and aesthetics? How might we as scholars and creative thinkers further employ the arts to envision and shape a verdant society?
Contributors: Carrie Mae Weems, Carmen Gillespie, Rikki Byrd, Amber Lauren Johnson, Doria E. Charlson, Florencia V. Cornet, Daniel McNeil, Lucy Caplan, Genevieve Hyacinthe, Sammantha McCalla, Nettrice R. Gaskins, Abby Dobson, J. Michael Kinsey, Shondrika Moss-Bouldin, Julie B. Johnson, Sharrell D. Luckett, Jasmine Eileen Coles, Tawnya Pettiford-Wates, Rickerby Hinds.
Author(s): Sharrell D. Luckett; Carrie Mae Weems
Series: The Griot Project Book Series
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
Year: 2019
Language: English
Commentary: includes color illustrations; missing section dividers (pages 13-14, 103-104, 189-190)
Pages: 344
Series Editor Foreword / Carmen Gillespie --
Visual Foreword / Carrie Mae Weems --
Introduction: African American Arts in Action / Sharrell D. Luckett --
Part I: Bodies of Activism. --
Trans Identity as Embodied Afrofuturism / Amber Johnson --
Designing Our Freedom: Toward a New Discourse on Fashion as a Strategy for Self-Liberation / Rikki Byrd --
Pearl Primus's Choreo-Activism: 1943-1949 / Doria E. Charlson --
Performing New Nationalism/Performing a Living Culture: Josefina Báez's Dominicanish / Florencia V. Cornet --
Ethnicity, Ethicalness, Excellence: Armond White's All-American Humanism / Daniel McNeil --
Race and History on the Operatic Stage: Caterina jarboro Sings Aida / Lucy Caplan --
Part II: Music and Visual Art as Activism. --
"I Am Basquiat": Tracing Jean-Michel Basquiat's Alterity and Activism in Paint and Performance / Genevieve Hyacinthe --
"I Luh God" : Erica Campbell, Trap Gospel and the Moral Mask of Language Discrimination / Sammantha McCalla --
The Hidden Code of the Kongo Cosmogram in African American Art and Culture / Nettrice R. Gaskins --
From Baldwin to Beyoncé: Exploring the Responsibility of the Artist in Society---Re-envisioning the Black Female Sonic Artist as Citizen / Abby Dobson --
Slaying "Formation": A Queering of Black Radical Tradition / J. Michael Kinsey --
Part III: Institutions of Activism. --
Centering Blackness through Performance in Every 28 Hours / Shondrika Moss-Bouldin --
Dancing for Justice Philadelphia: Embodiment, Dance, and Social Change / Julie B. Johnson --
A conversation with Freddie Hendricks of the Freddie Hendricks Youth Ensemble of Atlanta / Sharrell D. Luckett --
The Conciliation Project as a Social Experiment : Behind the Mask of Uncle Tom-ism and the Performance of Blackness / Jasmine Coles & Tawnya Pettiford-Wates --
Afterword: Blackballin' : a Play / by Rickerby Hinds.
