SOUTHERN CULTURES最新文献

Abstract:

In this conversation, Black radical feminist artist kai lumumba barrow and abolitionist geographer Lydia Pelot-Hobbs discuss the praxis of Black geographies, abolitionist play, and radical imagination in barrow's multifaceted artistic project [b]reach. Together they dialogue about the radical abundance of Blackness; the role of play and performance in abolitionist world-making; and the contradictions and discomfort of freedom projects past, present, and future.

Abstract:

Jessica Lynne conducted an interview with photographer Letitia Huckaby, a Fort Worth, Texas–based artist and cofounder of Kinfolk House, a collaborative project space in Fort Worth. In 2023, Huckaby was commissioned by Johnica Rivers and Michelle Lanier of the Harriet Jacobs Project to create a photographic series that resulted in the exhibition Memorable Proof. This exhibition was installed in the historic Chowan County Courthouse in Edenton, North Carolina, where Harriet Jacobs was born. In the interview, Huckaby discusses her relationship to the medium of photography through her formal studies at the Art Institute of Boston (now the art school of Lesley University) and the University of North Texas. She also remarks upon her personal, spiritual, and aesthetic relationship to Black southern landscapes such as Greenwood, Mississippi, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the spiritual valences of her artistic practice.

Abstract:

The histories of two families are examined to explore how African Americans remained attached to the American South during the Great Migration—the mass migration of African Americans out of the American South during the first half of the twentieth century. These continued attachments are described as habitual return, the ritualized practice of African Americans' frequent returns to the South. Weaving together family history and archival documents, the concept of habitual return illuminates the region as more than a place to flee from, as it remains the cultural home of countless African American families.

Abstract:

This essay traces the spatial vision of a house for Black women north of Chicago. Founded in 1924 by the Iroquois League—a Black women's club—the North Shore Community House was a "home-away-from-home" for Black women arriving in Evanston, IL, for education and domestic work. Rooming houses were a common source of additional income for Black residents in Great Migration cities but drew much social criticism. Rooming houses were considered to be places of vice, immorality, and deviance. Like fellow women's clubs, the Iroquois League hoped to protect and uplift their residents through collective living and cultural programs. But when faced with the threat of closure, they shifted their emphasis away from the moral character of their residents and toward the structural politics of housing. Drawing on archives from the Evanston History Center and Shorefront Legacy Center, this essay offers a close study of world-building and shows how one club secured space for Black women in a city that rendered them invisible beyond their labor.

Abstract:

An enslaved woman named Lydia was the victim of the 1829 assault in Chowan County, North Carolina, that was at issue in State v. Mann. After a trial court convicted John Mann for shooting Lydia as she fled from his punishment, the North Carolina Supreme Court, in a decision written by Thomas Ruffin, exonerated him. Ruffin reasoned that nothing short of "absolute" physical power of the enslaver over the enslaved could keep the institution of slavery intact. The opinion gave license to enslavers while it gave moral ballast to the abolitionist cause, with its frank acknowledgment of the cruelty at the heart of slavery. This essay approaches State v. Mann through the story of Lydia's life. Reading the archives closely, it speculates that Lydia, like Harriet Jacobs (whose story was unfolding in the same town at the same time), was the victim of sexual as well as physical abuse.

Abstract:

This essay explores the relationship between memory and images, using art as a surrogate for our personal archive. It is based on the discovery of an old family photo album that provided missing links to an ancestral history originating in the South. The author examines the many ways we construct our identities and reclaim our sense of self by connecting to the past and breaking the silences that surround pain and trauma. These examinations were facilitated by the visual archive, creating space for healing. By merging an imagined history constructed through visual art with these newly found images, the piece charts a path of wayfinding through a physical journey to Texas that became a spiritual catalyst for the exploration of self.