Please join us for the 20th Annual Black Women's Conference honoring bell hooks

Finding Our Place: A Conference in Honor of the Work and Writings
of bell hooks

Schedule | Contact

20th Annual Black Women’s Conference: April 18-19, 2014
This year is the 20^th convening of the Annual Black Women’s Conference.  In its history, there are few subjects of interest and important to the lives of Black women the conference has not explored.  As we celebrate this important year of the conference, we turn our attention to the work of a native daughter of Kentucky and preeminent feminist and intellectual, bell hooks.  Over the course of her career, hooks has been a leading thinker on the complexity of the positions of black women in American society and politics.  hooks continues to challenge  us with her current work to be both creative and thoughtful about understanding and making our place. Join us in celebrating the work of this important scholar and two decades of gathering black women in community. - more info: https://aaas.as.uky.edu/black-womens-conference

Sara Baartman Connections

photo credit - http://triciagilson.tumblr.com/post/10145301936/the-story-of-sara-baartman-is-haunting-and

We are continuing our discussion about the influence of Sara Baartman on popular culture, inclusive of sociology, psychology, and family interactions.

Please identify one photo (electronic or print) of Sara Baartman and then identify three photos of Baartman-like women that were produced in the 20th/21st Century, 1900-Present.

You may want these photos to be reflective to your research project ideas. Be able to tell me why the photo has Baartman's connotations or likenesses. Be able to say why the photo is relevant to research. 

Please post links and explanations regarding the photos in the comments portion of this post. 

Mekhatansh K McGuire presents at NCUR 2014

“BAD GYALS”, “ONE MINUTE MEN” & SEXUAL SUPREMACY: WOMEN-RAPPERS BOTH APPROPRIATING & RESISTING SEXISM AND MISOGYNY WITHIN HIP HOP.

Mekhatansh K. McGuire, Jacqueline Couti, Gender & Women's Studies, University of Kentucky

Sat 9:00-9:20 The White Hall 205 - The University of Kentucky

Mekhatansh K. McGuire - African American and Africana Studies Minor, University of Kentucky

pic from http://hiphopandpunkfeminisms.weebly.com/speakers--performers.html

This oral presentation will be exploring how women rappers appropriate tenets of hegemonic masculinity centering around the necessity to possess a high sexual prowess to legitimize and solidify the desired dominant position within the male-centered framework of hip hop. By using the contemporary artist Shystie and the more classic artist Foxy Brown; I come to conclusions about themes of resistance, dominance, black feminism and racism within the lyrical content of each artist. This sexual domination has a layer that seeks power and supremacy through one’s sexual prowess exposing a superficial testament to the power of a vagina which can be seen as empowering or pro-woman with residue from cultural feminism. But if you look deeper , what is revealed is a belief that a woman’s power rests solely in the her sexual prowess because without her ability to please or attach herself to a man she has nothing in this society that is rooted in a white supremacist, racist, sexist, patriarchal framework. In examining each of these women, I will show the nuanced relationship that Black women have with problematic cultural fixtures as well as how they negotiate success within the specific hegemonic masculine framework of mainstream hip hop as a means of creating scholarship that is in direct conversation with the culture that creates the need for these problematic appropriation.

Sat 9:00-9:20 The White Hall 205 - The University of Kentucky

National Conference on Undergraduate Research 2014

The University of Kentucky is proud to welcome the

National Conference on Undergraduate Research to its campus. 

Readiness for the Future: Maximizing Undergraduate Research

English Major/African American Studies Minor, Nathan Moore, will be presenting  Subjugation and the Supernatural: the Underworld in African American Letters. 

SUBJUGATION AND THE SUPERNATURAL: THE UNDERWORLD IN AFRICAN AMERICAN LETTERS

Nathan Alexander Moore, DaMaris Hill, Dept. of English, University of Kentucky, 1215 Patterson Office Tower Lexington KY 40506-0027

This research explores how to better understand and contextualize race in literature, particularly, social consciousness and oppression. A major component of the African American literary tradition is the social consciousness rooted in the racial discrimination of socially subjugated people and their negotiation of second-class citizenship. Another aspect of this research centers on how the language and themes used with African American texts are ways in which authors try to conceptualize their subjugation in the larger American social environment. Specifically, the works of Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and W.E.B. DuBois’ The Souls of Black Folk serve as expressions of my research. These texts are intrinsically haunted by the themes of racial subjugation, social consciousness and the supernatural. Both authors use mythic imagery and supernatural themes associated with the Underworld to articulate the experience of African Americans. They use theories associated with the American body politic and morality to describe the experience of African Americans. In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs details her life and experiences as a slave. Harriet Jacobs was born a slave in South Carolina and successfully escaped the “Demon Slavery”. Jacobs’ text is littered with the brutalization of African American bodies and the allusion that this moral savagery is an inherent pathogen under this peculiar socio-economic institution. In discussion with the greater social consciousness in African American letters, Jacobs crafts a narrative that has gossamer Underworld underpinnings of werewolf lore and allusions to silver as an economic/material agent that influences the viral efficacy of these decrepit conditions. W.E.B. DuBois, a prominent social scientist and activist within African American history and an accomplished author, was greatly influenced by his sociological background. DuBois’ text, The Souls of Black Folk, is blatantly critical of the racialized oppression in the United States and makes striking connections to Underworld and a type of morality rooted in spiritual disparity within the African American community. In conclusion this research furthers the discussion of social consciousness within the African American literary tradition and how this consciousness is conceptualized through the use of mythic imagery and supernaturalism. This research is so very important because it points not only to the spiritual strivings of a historically oppressed people, but furthers the insights into the social and psychological state of African American culture. By focusing this research on the themes of socially perceived and constructed Underworld environments, the reader can better realize that these authors are attempting to articulate a subjugated position that is so cumbersome, that the experience cannot be adequately conveyed using traditional allegories, the author must resort to divine experience. These authors use mythology to connect these supernatural aspects with the overarching and pervasive system of oppression, and subjugated social status.

NCUR oral presentations

topics in

African/African American Studies

*pink highlighted panels indicate research that may be relevant to our class

Thursday

DECONSTRUCTING DISCOURSES OF THE MIGRANT IN SOUTH AFRICAN HISTORY FROM APARTHEID TO THE PRESENT

Cate Anderson

Thu 11:20am-11:40am, Fine Arts (Little) Library 301

STEVE BIKO: AN INTELLECTUAL OF HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICAN BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS

Alexander Habibi

Thu 11:20am-11:40am CB 247

ADS OF IDENTITY: TRENDS IN AFRICAN AMERICAN BEAUTY ADVERTISEMENTS

Sakeena Fatima

Thu 2:00pm-2:20pm FA6

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN MUMMIFICATION & MEDICAL PRACTICE & ITS RELATION TO GREEK MEDICAL ADVANCEMENT THROUGH THE PRACTICE OF DISSECTION BY HEROPHILUS & ERASISTRATUS IN ALEXANDRIA

James Vondenberg

Thu 2:20pm-2:40pm

MALAWIAN WOMEN'S POUNDING SONGS

Giulia Perucchio, Joseph Lanning

Thu 2:20pm-2:40pm CB 335

RACIALIZED PATHS AND THE BUSINESS OF TOWNSHIP TOURISM (South Africa)

Emily de Wet

Thu 3:30pm-3:50pm CB 346

AN ALTERNATIVE VACATION: EXPLORING AND EVALUATING CULTURAL HERITAGE TOURISM IN JAMAICA

Michaela Santos, Zelmia Harvey, McKayla Hoffman, Alexandra Pivero

Thu 3:50pm-4:10pm  CB 346

HOSTILE RHETORIC: THE EFFECTS OF THE MEDIA ON THE RWANDAN GENOCIDE

Kelli Richards

Thu 11:00am-11:20am CB 247

NILE WATERFRONTS AND BRIDGES: THE NATURE OF COMMODIFICATION AND DEPUBLICIZATION IN CONTEMPORARY CAIRENE SPACES (Egypt)

Eddie Dioguardi

Thu 11:00am-11:20am Fine Arts (Little) Library 301

NEO-COLONIALISM IN AFRICA OR CONTINENTAL IMPRISONMENT: WHO TO BLAME?

Awa Gaye

Thu 2:00pm-2:20pm, CB 243

PROBLEMATIZING DECENTRALIZATION: THE EFFECTS OF CLASS ON POLITICAL PARTICIPATION IN AFRICA

Lyndsey Czapansky

Thu 2:40pm-3:00pm CB 243

INFLUENCES ON GM FOOD POLICY IN SOUTHERN AFRICA

Olivia Lewis

Thu 2:20pm-2:40pm CB 243

WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT: HYBRIDIZATION OF MARRIAGE IN THE ASHANTI REGION, GHANA

Katie Rawls

Thu 3:30pm-3:50pm Fine Arts Library 301

Friday

WESTERNERS ABROAD: NINETEENTH CENTURY EGYPT THROUGH THE EYES OF EUROPEAN TOURISTS

Margot Willis

Fri 9:40am-10:00am CB 233

ISLAMIC FEMINISM: A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE PRACTICAL IMPLEMENTATION OF WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN MOROCCO

Fri 9:20am-9:40am, CB 306

“A PEN AND A STETHOSCOPE”: THE HEALTHCARE SITUATION IN SENEGAL AS SEEN THROUGH FIRSTHAND EXPERIENCE

Marianne Macaluso

Fri 9:00am-9:20am POT 145

APPROPRIATION AND IDENTITY IN WILLIAM H. JOHNSON’S SELF-PORTRAITS (U.S.)

Heather Kolnick

Fri 9:40am-10:00am, CB 342

CUSTOMIZATION AND CONFLICT: BIOMEDICINE IN MAASAILAND (Kenya/Tanzania)

Maye Emlein

Fri 10:30am-10:50am CB 237

AFRICAN DANCE: HIDDEN BENEATH THE SURFACE

Sara Palmisano

Fri 10:50am-11:10am,  President’s Room, Singletary Center

GOROVODU MEDICINE AMONGST THE EWES OF GHANA AND TOGO

Nishanth Alluri

Fri 10:50am-11:10am CB 237

CULTURAL TWINS: A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF ROBERT FARRIS THOMPSON’S TEN CANNONS OF AFRICAN ART IN RELATION TO THE CULTURAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL ARCHETYPES IN AFRICA AND BLACK AMERICA  (Nigeria)

Olivia Harp

 Fri 3:50pm-4:10pm  CB 102

SLAVE RELIGIONS (U.S.)

Matthew Rakowski

Fri 3:50pm-4:10pm CB 342

SLAVERY AS ENTERTAINMENT: POWER RELATIONSHIPS OF SLAVERY IN 19TH CENTURY MINSTREL SHOWS (U.S.)

Kelly Schmidt

Fri 4:10pm-4:30pm CB 342

EGYPT POST-MUBARAK AND THE TURKISH MODEL

Salma Abdou

Fri 4:10pm-4:30pm, CB  4 :10 – 4 :30 

Saturday

THE POLITICS OF YOUTH MOBILIZATION AND INTERVENTION IN THE COLOURED TOWNSHIPS OF CAPE TOWN (South Africa)

Jessica Nielsen Kristin Doughty

Sat 9:00am-9:20am

CB 346

CARRIE MAE WEEMS: THE AFRICAN AMERICAN FEMALE NUDE IS “NOT MANET’S TYPE”

Xiaoshan Bao

Sat 9:00am-9:20am CB 340

NORTHSIDE (Lexington)

Melissa Carter

Sat 9:40am-10:00am Briggs Theater

THE IMPACT OF COLONIAL LEGACY ON AFRICAN WOMEN: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF BRITISH AND FRENCH COLONIAL INSTITUTIONS (Togo, Ghana)

Kaylee Gleason

Sat 9:40am-10:00am, CB 122

Venus in the Dark: Blackness and Beauty in Popular Culture

Greetings, Class Community. 

We are reading Janell Hobson's Venus in the Dark: Blackness and Beauty in Popular Culture.  Please comment on the following considerations in the comments post below.  

In your first comment post, please post at least three facts that associated with the iconic historical figure of Sara Baartman, "Venus Hottentot".

In your second post describe how the ideas steatopygia and sexual fetish are conflated?  And how do the conflation of ideas impact intersectional identity (such as being black and a woman) and ideas of beauty in popular culture? 

In your third comment, please describe the relationship between Sara Baartman and Cuvier i two or three sentences. 

Yours truly, 

Dr. Hill 

Who Are You Looking At? - Research Considerations for AAS401-Politics of Physical Appearance

Greetings, Ladies.

We are discussing our research interests.  Please take a moment to post a summary of your abstracts.  Take a moment to discuss how it connects with other theories we are exploring in the course.

Dr. Hill

Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body by Susan Bordo

Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body by Susan Bordo

Greetings, Class Community. 

We explored the constructions of femininity through the theoretical ideas presented in the chapter, "The Body and the Reproduction of Femininity" by Susan Bordo.  We also discussed how the constructions of femininity operate in popular culture. Then, we discussed how the constructions of femininity and the ways the 'pretty patrol' is expressed in Morrison's The Bluest Eye. 

In the comments portion of this post, please write two responses of at least two or three sentences.

  

1. Please identify one or two ways femininity was constructed in Morrison's The Bluest Eye.

2. Please identify and write what the "ideal femininity" in American culture looks like. Then provide examples; describe how femininity is constructed and 'patrolled' in our society.   

Your working abstract/paper proposal should be emailed to me by Monday, March 3, 2014.  The abstract should be 250-300 words long and include a research question, research component (a description of the research method you would like to use) and a brief description of the longer paper. 

Yours truly, 

Dr. Hill