In 2019, renowned American literary critic and Black feminist scholar Hortense Spillers donated her papers to the Pembroke Center’s Feminist Theory Archive in the name of the Black Feminist Theory Project, and in April 2022, the Pembroke Center opened the exhibit “Hortense Spillers: A Life Recorded.”
This symposium is a celebration of both the collection and exhibit. It will bring together graduate students, early-career scholars, and independent scholars to study and discuss Spillers’s contributions to intellectual and pedagogical practices in the fields of Black feminist criticism, literary studies, and cultural studies, among others. This symposium will include a keynote talk by C. Riley Snorton (University of Chicago). Spillers will be present and participating in this event. There will be a conversation between Spillers and Margo Natalie Crawford, University of Pennsylvania, to close the symposium.
This symposium is led by graduate students Tara Holman, Christopher Lasasso, Kiran Saili, and Semilore Sobande in collaboration with the Pembroke Center.
Pembroke Hall 305
Free and open to the public. Registration not required.
Co-sponsored by the Department of Africana Studies, the Department of American Studies, the Department of English, and the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America.
Presented with the support of the Friends of the Pembroke Center.
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Friday, November 11
|
1:00-1:15 |
Welcome Tara Holman, Brown University |
|
1:15-2:00 |
The Hortense Spillers Papers: Behind the Scenes Amanda Knox and Mary Murphy, Pembroke Center Archives, Brown University Discussant: Christopher Lasasso, Brown University |
|
2:00-4:00 |
Panel 1: In Her Words: Spillers Through the Archive Kiana Murphy, Brown University Zalika U. Ibaorimi, University of Texas at Austin Ra Malika Imhotep, University of California, Riverside Discussants: Donald Brown, Brown University and Aliyyah Abdur-Rahman, Brown University |
|
4:00-4:15 |
Break |
|
4:15 |
Keynote Lecture C. Riley Snorton, University of Chicago, “Thinking Gender in the Interstice” |
Saturday, November 12
|
9:30-10:00 |
Continental Breakfast |
|
10:00-12:00 |
Panel 2: “Learn[ing] To Hear it Well”: Exercises in Psychoanalytics Devon Clifton, Brown University dee(dee) c. ardan, Independent Scholar Andrew Blackley, Independent Scholar Benjamin Schwartz, Vanderbilt University Discussants: Megan Finch, Brown University and Adrián Hernández-Acosta, Brown University |
|
12:00-1:00 |
Lunch Break |
|
1:00-3:00 |
Panel 3: Inventiveness & Revising Public Discourses Ariel Lawrence, Emory University Kress Stewart, Independent Scholar Sihle Motsa, University of Cape Town Discussants: Kevin E. Quashie, Brown University and Shoniqua Roach, Brandeis University |
|
3:00-3:15 |
Break |
|
3:15-4:00 |
Closing Session: Hortense Spillers, Vanderbilt University Margo Natalie Crawford, University of Pennsylvania |
Contact information:
pembroke_center@brown.edu
401-863-2643