Join Dr. Anita Girvan for a multi-session reading salon in which members will engage in collegial conversation about the emerging field of black feminist and coalitional ecological thought, built upon ancestral lineages. Dr. Girvan is an Assistant Professor of Cultural Studies and Environmental Justice in the department of English and Cultural Studies in FCCS.
The first session will discuss the text, Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, and will be held on April 14th from 10am to noon in ART 218.
Anyone on campus is invited to join this group who can commit to joining this community and to centering and reading Black feminist and coalitional texts and creative interventions. We are hoping to create community where BIPOC knowledges are held and centered, but all are welcome to learn and foster supportive communities of practice toward liberatory futures for human and larger-than-human kin.
In order to build good relations, the group number will be capped at 20, so please e-mail anita.girvan@ubc.ca ASAP if you are committed to attending. If you really want to join, can commit to three future sessions in the year and reading the texts chosen, but cannot make this session, please e-mail Anita. First priority in the salon will be given to those in attendance this first session.
Dates for following sessions will be determined by the group after the first meet-up.
Each session will focus upon a text or cultural artefacts in the emerging, but long existent, field of Black Feminist Ecological Thought.
Dr. Girvan says: My own spin on this is to call it Black Feminist and Coalitional Ecological Thought. I note that the lineages of Black feminism (eg Combahee River Collective) have always been coalitional in some form or the other – as they seek to connect with communities who have knowledges and experiences that are negatively impacted by exclusionary power – but it may be important to flag this explicitly at a time when divide and conquer politics function to maintain a troubling status quo.
Texts for future sessions will be drawn from the following (and/or participants’ suggestions at first session):
- The Deep – Rivers Solomon
- Chapter 16. “Black Feminist Ecological Thought: A Manifesto” – a chapter
Chelsea Mikael Frazier in Ecofeminism Abrams and Gruen eds) (2nd Edition) - World of Wonders -Aimee Nezhukumatathi
- Nia love – New York choreographer film-maker “UnderCurrents” (she performs, dances
drowning) - nichola fedman-kiss “Siren III” – Toronto- film and art installation (filmed underwater in
the Atlantic ocean) - Aph and Syl Ko. 2017.Aphro-ism: Essays on Pop Culture, Feminism and Black
- Veganism from Two Sisters. Lantern Publishing
- Octavia Butler or NK Jemison
- Dionne Brand (Map or any others of hers)