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The Worlds of Ntozake ShangeAND DIGITAL STORYTELLING

Kim Hall

Adjustments for this week

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Ladies, I hope you are feeling supported during this difficult time. I am in the middle of consulting with the Digital Humanities Center about the final assignment and plan to reach out to you soon (possibly late tonight [Sunday] regarding alternatives and possibilities for completing the semester.

I’ll  share with you some of my challenges in handling this. I’m at somewhat of a loss here and don’t feel able to adjudicate individual situations.  On a personal level, there is no one-size-fits-all response to community crisis.  Some people find it difficult to concentrate in such a time; others find throwing themselves into a task or project to be a source of equilibrium.  They are equally valid and not necessarily based on how close one is to heart of the loss.   The other challenge is institutional: I feel like each of you at this point has clearly learned enough about Ntozake Shange and her “worlds” to do well. Most of you have felt your way through some of the archive.  However, the course fulfills a “thinking digitally” foundations requirement and that is (mostly) made manifest in the final Scalar project.  I can give you blanket extensions, but some of you also need some closure for this semester.

These are what I am thinking through and will get back to you!

AFEN3816: What to expect

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Dear all, people had questions about the Spring course, so I wanted to say that its a bit of a work in progress. The last time I taught it we were working both with the International Center for Photography and The Schomburg Center.  This will be a quieter experience, but here’s what to expect: We hopefully will combine further investigations of Ntozake’s work with some collaborative work and your own creation of some sort of digital project.  Here’s what that looks like, pending further conversations with the Digital Humanities Center.

–the themes will be collaboration, improvisation, and archiving. Most of the works  (Shange’s and other peoples) we examine will be self-conscious about those qualities  (I don’t know if you can read it, but I have put in a screenshot of works we might be reading, Spell #7 is not on that list, but will probably be there).

–I expect that within the first month of classes you will have conceived of a digitally based project that you will work on throughout the semester.

— I hope we will work together on one project, which right now is looking like a published Zotero biblography on Shange & her impact.

–I hoping that we will have a workshop on choreographing a poem with +SLMDance company.

 

Proposed Book list for 2019

 

Scalar, Part 2_ & for colored girls

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Cast of 2019 production of for colored girls . . .at The Public

Hello all,  Taylor showed us some wonderful ways to use Scalar, both in itself and along with other digital tools.  Those who attended probably realized that you forget how to use tools if you don’t use the regularly! In that spirit, I encourage/invite those of you with blogposts left to do at least one of them on Scalar, try tagging and using the widgets.  Although I realize that these will be experimental, if you are trying to be particularly bodacious, please feel free to put “this is an experiment” at the top.

One useful tip from Taylor: Think about combining analogue and digital content– perhaps use your own drawings, paintings or collages with annotations and other media.

Taylor shared her outline and the links from the session with us. You can find it here.  I put at the bottom of that outline a spreadsheet for you to let us know what you are thinking about doing for your final project and a way to contact each other so that you might  go to the DHC together or figure out problems.  If you have problem accessing the spreadsheet, you can do it here.

Blog Prompt (not required): Shange for the People!

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Cover to June Jordan & her students’ collection

Some of the Barnard staff involved with the #ShangeMagic project have asked how they can be part of discussions of Shange’s works given that they don’t have access to the classes, etc. and have limited time during the day.  I’m hoping to compile a selection of some of Shange’s works for them to have (hopefully we will discuss them over a lunch during the spring). For copyright reasons, I don’t want to call it a Shange “reader,” but maybe it will be a  “Shange mixtape” in photocopies.

The Costs of Liberation

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Barbara Smith, Black Feminist institution builder

As we have been talking abut the labor of printing and digital expression vis-a-vis the Adair/Nakamura essay, I thought it pertinent to point your attention to the activism around creating a retirement fund for black feminist Barbara Smith, who was a co:founder both of The Combahee River Collective AND Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press.

This is not a fundraising post, but a reminder that influence and even fame don’t always put food on the table and that caring for the elders who uplifted us is also feminist/activist practice. Very successful feminists like Ntozake needed a circle of care and support as they got older and unpaid /invisible labor isn’t just theory!

Next class-Archive visit/ blog audit_ UPDATE

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Hello all,

On Thursday,  the class is meeting with Martha and Vani in the archives. To prepare, I would like you to do the following:

If you haven’t read (or didn’t absorb) the Cassius Adair/Lisa Nakamura essay, “The Digital Afterlives of This Bridge Called My Back: Woman of Color Feminism, Digital Labor, and Networked Pedagogy,” please read that carefully.

Read the Shange Collection Finding Aid (click on the link in the upper right) and request one item from the archives by noon on WEDNESDAY. (If you are eager, you can request up to 3).

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

–The “before 9am” for this week’s blogpost  is lifted, you can do an open post on any reading from the semester– or do your archive find.

–Speaking of archives, Professor Kimberly Springer’s Black Feminism Archives: An archive of 1970s black feminist organizing, is open for perusal and has lots of great materials for an archive find!

–I won’t have office hours this week, but PLEASE sign up for a quick appointment with me next week to discuss your final project. (The yellow slots on this spreadsheet are for my other class.)

— RE THE BLOG AUDIT:

Happy Birthday Zake!

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Ntozake Shange was born Paulette Linda Williams in Trenton New Jersey on October 18 1948

In celebration, do something nice for yourself today! Be present for someone!

 

Ntozake Shange in Barnard College Archives

 

Blogpost Assignment: Archive Find of the Week

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Student perusing the finding aid to the Ntozake Shange Collection

Dear class, now that you’ve had some collective exposure to The Ntozake Shange Collection and the archives, you should be planning to go on your own to explore and consider how you might help the archive speak to others through your digital story.  This means, as Brianna pointed out on Monday, journeying between the archives, the class readings and Scalar.

Any time before Thanksgiving break, you will write a post about an item found during your archival research.  It does not have to be something you  will use in your project. Pretend you are writing a caption label (20-150 words) and then include some discussion of the following:

“Emergency Care of Wounds That Cannot Be Seen”: Healing Justice & Ntozake Shange (Event)

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Free and open to the public!

In the spirit of writer Ntozake Shange (BC ‘71), whose works explored indigenous, black, and folk ways of healing from both immediate emotional wounds and the transgenerational psychic pain wrought by legacies of patriarchal white supremacy, we invite you to a night of conversation, reflection, and embodied practice. According to cultural/memory worker, curator, and organizer Cara Page, who coined the term, “healing justice” is a framework that  “identifies how we can holistically respond to and intervene on generational trauma and violence and bring[s] collective practices that can impact and transform the consequences of oppression on our bodies, hearts and minds.” Working with Cara Page, choreographer-writer Ebony Noelle Golden, and Educator-herbalist Tiffany Lenoi, this space introduces attendees to healing justice practices that can promote individual and communal healing and transform the ways we work together. This is the first event of the Healing, Creativity, Envisioning Freedom Project  #ShangeMagic

October 1st, 6pm – 8pm  *  James Room, Barnard Hall, 4th floor

PARTICIPANTS (speaker bios available here)

Cara Page, cultural/memory worker, curator, and organizer who coined the term “healing justice”

Ebony Noelle Golden (founder of Betty’s Daughter Arts Collaborative)

Tiffany Lenoi (of Harriet’s Apothecary)

Moderator Vani Natarajan, Research and Instruction Librarian in the Humanities and Global Studies

**You are welcome to write a blogpost about this event for an Extra Credit / Wild Card blogpost**