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    African American Arts
    Activism, Aesthetics, and Futurity

    Sharrell D. Luckett (Edited by), Carrie Mae Weems (Foreword by), Sharrell D. Luckett (Contributions by), Carmen Gillespie (Contributions by), Rikki Byrd (Contributions by), Amber Lauren Johnson (Contributions by), Doria E. Charlson (Contributions by), Florencia V. Cornet (Contributions by), Daniel McNeil (Contributions by), Lucy Caplan (Contributions by), Genevieve Hyacinthe (Contributions by), Sammantha McCalla (Contributions by), Nettrice R. Gaskins (Contributions by), Abby Dobson (Contributions by), J. Michael Kinsey (Contributions by), Shondrika Moss-Bouldin (Contributions by), Julie B. Johnson (Contributions by), Jasmine Eileen Coles (Contributions by), Tawnya Pettiford-Wates (Contributions by), Rickerby Hinds (Contributions by)

    9781684481521

    Paperback / softback, published 6 December 2019

    344 pages, 15 color images, 1 b-w total
    25.4 x 17.8 x 2.3 cm, 0.481 kg

    “In African American Arts: Activism, Aesthetics, and Futurity, Sharrell D. Luckett brings together a treasure trove of essays that contribute greatly to the extant literature on black art and the political economic conditions through which they emerge. With the same care to aesthetics as the artists they analyze, each of the authors in the volume demonstrates that race, artistry, and activism are intimately imbricated-and must be if there is to be a black future.”
    - E. Patrick Johnson (author of Appropriating Blackness: Performance and Politics of Authenticity)
    "Three essays will be especially noteworthy for readers new to this topic: Abby Dobson's “From Baldwin to BeyoncÉ,” Lucy Caplan's 'Race and History on the Operatic Stage,' and Jasmine Coles and Tawnya Pettiford-Wates's 'The Conciliation Project as a Social Experiment.' The last of these explores 'Uncle Tom-ism' as portrayed in minstrel shows and deconstructs the bipolar extremes of the good versus bad slave. Recommended." 
    (Choice)
    "A compendium of provocative, smart contemporary thought on the politics of culture and possibilities for progressive interventions; and it surveys various fields, identifying figures and projects of worth."
    (Offscreen)

    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.

    Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press. 


    List of Illustrations                 
     
    Visual Foreword: Carrie Mae Weems
     
    Series Editor Foreword: Carmen Gillespie
     
    Introduction: African American Arts in Action
    Sharrell D. Luckett
     
    Bodies of Activism
    Chapter 1: Trans Identity as Embodied Afrofuturism 
    Amber Johnson 
                           
    Chapter 2: Designing Our Freedom: Toward a New Discourse of Fashion as a Strategy for Self
    Liberation  
    Rikki Byrd
     
    Chapter 3: Pearl Primus' Choreo-Activism: 1943-1949  
    Doria E. Charlson  
     
    Chapter 4: Performing New Nationalism/Performing a Living Culture: Josefina BÁ
    ez’
    s
    "
    Dominicanish"
      
    Florencia V. Cornet  
     
    Chapter 5: Ethnicity, Ethicalness, Excellence: Armond White’
    s All-American Humanism
    Daniel McNeil
     
    Chapter 6: Race and History on the Operatic Stage: Caterina Jarboro Sings Aida 
    Lucy Caplan
     
    Music &
    Visual Art as Activism
    Chapter  7: “
    I Am Basquiat”
    : Tracing Jean-Michel Basquiat's Alterity and Activism in
    Paint and Performance 
    Genevieve Hyacinthe
               
    Chapter 8: “
    I Luh God”
    : Erica Campbell, Trap Gospel and the Moral Mask of Language
    Discrimination 
    Sammantha McCalla
     
    Chapter 9: The Hidden Code of the Kongo Cosmogram in African American Art and Culture
    Nettrice R. Gaskins 
     
    Chapter 10: From Baldwin to BeyoncÉ
    : Exploring the Responsibility of the Artist in Society--- Re-envisioning the Black Female Sonic Artist as Citizen  
    Abby Dobson
     
    Chapter 11: Slaying “
    Formation”
    : A Queering of Black Radical Tradition
    J. Michael Kinsey 
     
    Institutions of Activism
    Chapter 12: Centering Blackness Through Performance in Every 28 Hours
    Shondrika Moss-Bouldin
     
    Chapter 13: Dancing for Justice Philadelphia: Embodiment, Dance, and Social Change 
    Julie B. Johnson
     
    Chapter 14: A Conversation with Freddie Hendricks of the Freddie Hendricks Youth Ensemble
    of Atlanta
    Sharrell D. Luckett
     
    Chapter 15: The Conciliation Project as a Social Experiment: Behind the Mask of Uncle Tomism
    and the Performance of Blackness
    Jasmine Coles &
    Tawnya Pettiford-Wates 
     
    Afterword: Blackballin'  
    A play by Rickerby Hinds
     
    Acknowledgments

    Index

    About the Contributors
     
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