Authors Speak: The Impact of Race on American Society
Black cultural awareness, or “wokeness,” is a state of being that many believe can be achieved. However, attaining awareness is a journey – a continuous practice, in order to gain understanding. The study and acceptance of black history and culture is an ongoing process that is decided upon and then embarked upon.
Everyone is at different points in the journey. Some are exploring it alone. Others join book clubs and study groups, and some enroll in degree programs, or pursue scholarly endeavors. Some are aware of black history and culture and its impact on our society; others are not. And still others have decided not to acknowledge the importance of other cultures at all. They seek, instead, to diminish or eliminate their very existence.
Through their collaboration with The Authors Speak Series, the Spady Cultural Heritage Museum, Arts Garage and Delray Beach Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) have decided to provide an exciting opportunity for those who are on the journey towards greater understanding. The Authors Speak Series is an opportunity to have interesting, enlightening conversations with writers who have cultivated a perspective on black cultural awareness through their research and personal experiences.
Together, the Spady Museum, Arts Garage and CRA intend to create more pathways for people to make progress toward understanding others and hopefully welcome more people to join the journey along the way.
AUTHOR BIO:
Jasmine Nichole Cobb is Professor of African & African American Studies and of Art, Art History and Visual Studies at Duke University, as well as a co-director of the “From Slavery to Freedom” (FS2F) Franklin Humanities Lab. A scholar of black cultural production and visual representation, Cobb is the author of two monographs, Picture Freedom: Remaking Black Visuality in the Early Nineteenth Century (NYUP 2015) and New Growth: The Art and Texture of Black Hair (Duke UP 2022). She is the editor for African American Literature in Transition, 1800-1830 (Cambridge UP 2021) and she has written essays for Public Culture, MELUS: Multi- Ethnic Literature of the United States, and American Literary History.
Her third monograph in progress, The Pictorial Life of Harriet Tubman, offers a visual history of the abolitionist, from the middle nineteenth century through the present, including the persistence of the abolitionist’s image in contemporary art and popular culture.
BOOK DESCRIPTION: New Growth: The Art & Texture of Black Hair
From Frederick Douglass to Angela Davis, “natural hair” has been associated with the Black freedom struggle. In New Growth Jasmine Nichole Cobb traces the history of Afro-textured coiffure, exploring it as a visual material through which to reimagine the sensual experience of Blackness. Through close readings of slave narratives, scrapbooks, travel illustration, documentary film and photography, as well as collage, craft, and sculpture, from the nineteenth century to the present, Cobb shows how the radical distinctions ascribed to people of African descent become simultaneously visible and tactile. Whether examining Soul Train’s and Ebony’s promotion of the Afro hair style alongside cosmetics or how artists such as Alison Saar and Lorna Simpson underscore the construction of Blackness through the representation of hair, Cobb foregrounds the inseparability of Black hair’s look and feel. Demonstrating that Blackness is palpable through appearance and feeling, Cobb reveals the various ways that people of African descent forge new relationships to the body, public space, and visual culture through the embrace of Black Hair.
Books are available in limited quantities for all attendees on the evening of the event!
Enjoy plant based bites by Chef Samuel Woods, The Rabbit Hole – Elevated Vegan Comfort Cuisine
Registering early for this FREE event will help us ensure that there is enough food available for all attendees!
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