Africana Studies & The Arts: An AFR/WCMA Collaboration

Join us for a dynamic, interactive session with Africana Studies faculty about the intersections of Black Studies and Black art. In addition to dialoguing about student encounters with a range of WCMA materials in Africana Studies courses (e.g. Gordon Parks, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems, John Wilson and others), Professors Rashida Braggs, James Manigault-Bryant, Rhon Manigault-Bryant, and Neil Roberts will riff on their experiences of teaching WCMA holdings, the overlapping themes that inform their collective work, and ways that art can be a primary source for thinking about Blackness globally.

The session will run twice during the allocated time, and handouts will be available. Attendees are invited to explore relevant Africana/WCMA collaboration pieces in the New Painting Exhibit, which include the works of Barkley Hendricks, Titus Kaphar, and Kehinde Wiley (adjacent to the Rose Gallery); in the stunning James Van Der Zee: Collecting History Exhibit on the second floor; and in two works on display by Zanele Muholi in Possible Selves and the Object Lab for ART 308, African Art and the Western Museum.

This is one in a series of events commemorating the fifty-year presence of Africana Studies at Williams.