‘CHALLENGING THE POLITICS OF (IN)VISIBILITY: MODERN MUTUAL AID SOCIETIES, WOMANIST POLITICS, AND GLOBAL FUNKSTRESS JANELLE MONAE’
6 p.m. Philander Smith College.
It was back in the fall of ’11 that, while compiling the week’s calendar events, I came across the following lecture title, by Professor Lisa Corrigan of the University of Arkansas: “Afrofuturism and the Politics of Possibility: Radical Social Love and the Career of Michael Jackson.” I noted then that it was “the most badass, intriguing title ever. If you were wondering how you should go about picking a name for your lecture, this is how it is done, folks.”
Well now Corrigan is coming back to Central Arkansas for two more lectures, which also have rad and interesting titles. The first is “Challenging the Politics of (In)visibility: Modern Mutual Aid Societies, Womanist Politics, and Global Funkstress Janelle Monae.” Now that’s the kind of lecture title that will make you want to get out of the house and go learn something.
And there’s more: At 7 p.m. Friday at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Little Rock, Corrigan will deliver “The Old Jim Crow and The New Jim Crow: Tracing the Contours of Black Incarceration,” with a Q&A to follow. The lecture is in conjunction with a discussion of civil rights attorney and scholar Michelle Alexander’s critically acclaimed and award-winning book “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.”