Black Creative Worlds: Full Schedule
Black Creative Worlds is a community offering of notes, readings, and curriculum from my convening of Black Creative Worlds (a bit.ly/JHUBlackWorld seminar) in Spring 2025.
For more on the Black World, including past seminar schedules and an essay about the Black World Seminar by Dr. Nathan Connolly visit: bit.ly/JHUBlackWorld
This morning, I sent our students the seminar schedule. Sharing it here with you all as well. See you Monday for the first community offering, New Worlds.
Seminar Schedule
Week 1 – January 21 - Practicing New Worlds
“Introduction,” Andrea Ritchie, Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies (La Vergne: AK Press, 2023).
Suggested:
“The Digital Apothecary with Moya Bailey,” The Emergent Strategy Podcast,
Week 2 – January 28 - Imagination
Ruha Benjamin, Imagination: A Manifesto (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2024).
“What is Abolition?,” Andrea Ritchie, Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies (La Vergne: AK Press, 2023).
Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab: https://www.thejustdatalab.com/
Week 3 - February 4 – Black Feminist Writing with Dr. Stephanie Y. Evans
Stephanie Y. Evans, Black Feminist Writing: A Practical Guide to Publishing Academic Books (State University of New York Press, 2024).
“What Are Emergent Strategies,” Andrea Ritchie, Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies (La Vergne: AK Press, 2023).
Foundations of Black Womens’ Studies: https://foundationsofbwst.net/
Week 4 - February 11 - Computational Humanities Book Celebration with Roopika Risam, Vanessa Holden, and Crystal Eddins
Lauren Tilton, David Mimno, and Jessica Marie Johnson, eds., Computational Humanities (Minneapolis: Univ Of Minnesota Press, 2024)
“Emergent Strategies and Abolition,” Andrea Ritchie, Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies (La Vergne: AK Press, 2023).
Week 5 - February 18 - Digital Alchemy
Moya Bailey, Misogynoir Transformed: Black Women’s Digital Resistance (New York: NYU Press, 2021).
“Abolition is Fractal,” Andrea Ritchie, Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies (La Vergne: AK Press, 2023).
Week 6 - February 25 - Time, Love and Rage with Dr. Brittney Cooper
WIP to be circulated - Title TBA
“Abolition is Decentralized and Rooted in Interdependence,” Andrea Ritchie, Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies (La Vergne: AK Press, 2023).
Suggested Readings:
Brittney Cooper, Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2018)
Brittney C. Cooper, Susana M. Morris, and Robin M. Boylorn, eds., The Crunk Feminist Collection (New York: The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2017).
Week 7 - March 4 - Survival is a Promise with Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Survival is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde
“Abolition is Adaptive and Intentional,” Andrea Ritchie, Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies (La Vergne: AK Press, 2023).
Week 8 - March 11 - Parables of the Present
Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower &
Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents
“Abolition is Nonlinear and Iterative,” Andrea Ritchie, Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies (La Vergne: AK Press, 2023).
Suggested Readings:
Octavia’s Parables Podcast, chapter 1, https://www.readingoctavia.com/episodes/sower-e1
Gerry Canavan, “‘There’s Nothing New / Under The Sun, / But There Are New Suns’: Recovering Octavia E. Butler’s Lost Parables,” Los Angeles Review of Books, June 9, 2014, https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/theres-nothing-new-sun-new-suns-recovering-octavia-e-butlers-lost-parables/.
Ruha Benjamin, “But … There Are New Suns!”,” Palimpsest: A Journal on Women, Gender, and the Black International 6, no. 1 (2017): 103–5.
Week 9 - March 18 - Spring Break - No Classes
Week 10 - March 25 - WORKS IN PROGRESS
WIP x 2 - TBA
Week 11 - April 1 - Marronage
Crystal Nicole Eddins, Rituals, Runaways, and the Haitian Revolution: Collective Action in the African Diaspora (Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2021).
“Abolition Builds Resilience,” Andrea Ritchie, Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies (La Vergne: AK Press, 2023).
“Abolition is Cooperative and Focused on Collective Sustainability,” Andrea Ritchie, Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies (La Vergne: AK Press, 2023).
Week 12 - April 8 - WORKS IN PROGRESS
WIP x 2 - TBA
Week 14 – April 15 - Afrofuturism & Historical Correction with Danielle Evans
Kevin M. Strait and Kinshasha Holman Conwill, ed., Afrofuturism: A History of Black Futures, ed. Kevin M. Strait and Kinshasha Holman Conwill (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2023).
Danielle Evans, “The Office of Historical Corrections” in The Office of Historical Corrections: A Novella and Stories (Riverhead Books, 2020).
“Abolition Creates New Possibilities (That We Can’t Concretely Imagine,” Andrea Ritchie, Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies (La Vergne: AK Press, 2023).
Week 15 - April 22 - LifexCode Research Celebration with Marisa Parham and the African American Digital and Experimental Humanities (AADHum) Initiative
“A Note on Wave-Particle Duality,” Andrea Ritchie, Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies (La Vergne: AK Press, 2023).
“Practice (A Conclusion),” Andrea Ritchie, Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies (La Vergne: AK Press, 2023).
love,
jmj
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