The turn toward an aesthetic of Black excellence on TV reveals a mode of self-fashioning that celebrates neoliberal markers of merit and prestige.
Tag: Black Art
It’s on the Illabus: Jean-Christophe Cloutier and John Jennings
“Everything in the comic has to be thought about from front cover to end … How are you going to use all the secret resources of comics?”
Unkind Laughter
“Consider the laughter on October 15, 1982—after 1,000 people died from complications related to AIDS—at the Reagan White House press briefing.”
Beholding Black Life: A Conversation with Ross Gay, Frank Guridy, & Deborah Paredez
“We have to witness everything… You don't do it by yourself. That mode of looking is not like any individual feat; it is a feat of joining.”
Finding Black People in Antiquity: Talking the Future of Classics with Sarah Derbew
“It feels insensitive or dishonest to not acknowledge the ways in which our work is a part of a greater narrative.”
“Now Is the Time of Help”: On Claudia Rankine
A new play centers on a Black woman who stops “accommodating white people” and, instead, asks them “about their love affair with my death.”
On Dressing Down Myth
“I research specific instances of Black artists who strip themselves out of mythologized dressings around race, sexuality, and gender.”
“When Harlem Was in Vogue” at 40
The Harlem Renaissance continues to serve as a source of pride and dignity as well as ammunition in the ongoing struggle for civil rights.
Public Thinker: Chawne Kimber on Constructing Quilts and Speaking History
"You cannot talk about race without talking about cotton. The materials that I use are desperately important as a layer of meaning in the work that I make."