- This event has passed.
Colloquium Event: Dr Aretina R. Hamilton
March 31, 2021 @ 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Dr Aretina R. Hamilton, Director of DEI Programming, Education, Training, and Development at Brandeis University
Date/Time: Wednesday, March 31st from 3:30-4:30 p.m.
Title: The Cartographies of Unapologetic Southern Queer Blackness
Speaker: Dr. Aretina R. Hamilton
Director of DEI Programs, Training, Education, and Development
Brandeis University
Abstract:
Atlanta, Georgia is an essential site of Black cultural production, identity, and belonging. Drawing on ethnographic and archival data collected between 2004 and 2010, this talk unpacks how African American lesbians in Atlanta mobilized social networks, book clubs, house parties, and social activism to create spaces of belonging that were at once Southern, queer, and rooted in African American culture. I argue that African American lesbians in Atlanta created a queer palimpsest, or a multi-tiered process that challenged the dominant culture’s erasures of Southern Blackness and queerness. In a time of rapid demographic and urban growth, these Black lesbians carved the literal geography of the city to meet, convene, and establish Black queer communities that provided a refuge from the horror of racialized and homophobic violence that saturated their hometowns and other metropolises. While previous research has focused on the physical geographies in which queer people create spaces of safety and refuge, I highlight how the visceral, unknowable, and symbolic sites of belonging for Black LGBTQ people are often shaped by racial trauma that is both written in the landscape and psychically experienced.
Zoom Registration Info:
When: Mar 31, 2021 03:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Topic: Dr. Aretina R. Hamilton
Register in advance for this webinar:
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
