Queer Africas Workshop

Monday, November 18, 2019 - 9:15am
Sterling Chemistry Laboratory (SCL) See map
225 Prospect Street
New Haven, CT 06511
Event description: 

9:15am Tea/Coffee

9:30am: Welcome – Meredith Shepard, Stephanie Newell, Vivian Lu

9:35-10:30am: Session I: Queer African Cinema
Chair: Meredith Shepard (Yale University)
•Invited Guest Speaker: Lindsey Green-Simms (American University Washington)
When Calluses Form: Wanuri Kahiu’s Rafiki and the Aspirations of Queer African Cinema
•Sara Hanaburgh (St. John’s University)
Queering Adaptation: Aesthetics, the Soundscape and Performance in Karmen Geï and Rafiki

10:30-11:30am: Session II: Methodological and Ethical Issues
Chair: Stephanie Newell (Yale University)
•Invited Guest Speaker: Shola Adenekan (U. of Bremen)
How should a Heterosexual African Male Theorise Queer Africa in the Digital Age?
•Yaari Felber-Seligman (City College of New York)
Linguistics and Uncovering Precolonial Queer African Pasts

11:30am-12:30pm: Session III: Enterprise
Chair: Vivian Lu (Yale University)
•Matthew Eatough (Baruch College, CUNY)
Is Queering Entrepreneurial? Some Thoughts on the New Creative Economy
•Serena Stein (Princeton University)
Cultivating Queer Africa: Women Farmers and Ecologies of Desire in northern Mozambique

12:30-1:15pm: Lunch will be provided at the workshop venue

1:15-2:15pm: Session IV: Queer Africa in America
Chair: Eleni Coundouriotis (U. of Connecticut)
•Mary Martin (Yale University)
Against Single-Mindedness: The Healthy Selves in Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater
•Kevin Quin (Cornell University)
“We Must Form an Autonomous Black Gay Movement:” The Blackheart Collective, Diaspora, and the Queering of Africa

2:15-3:30pm: Session V: Pleasures & Utopias
Chair: Kunle George (Brown University)
•Invited Guest Speaker: Naminata Diabate (Cornell University)
Neoliberal Pleasure and Queer African Digital Erotica.
•Yasmina Martin (Yale University)
“Now I am Not Afraid:” Simon Nkoli and the Movement Towards Queer Utopia

3:30pm: Tea/Coffee

4:00-4:30pm: Stories From His Life: Palimpsest and Psyche in the Memoirs
of Binyavanga Wainaina

•Tavia Nyongo (Yale University)