Ivy Wilson "Hieroglyphs of the African Diaspora: Black Popular Culture and Nonce Transnationalism"


 Poetics, History, Theory at UCI     Apr 19 2013 | 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM HIB 135

Hieroglyphs of the African Diaspora: Black Popular Culture and Nonce Transnationalism

While important strands of black diaspora theory privilege notions of translation or syncretism as an effort to locate the analogous points of convergence to re-imagine disparate experiences, this talk examines key moments in black cultural production where the correlative link between the U.S. and Africa can only be rendered legible through what might be called an associative ambiance. More specifically, by tracing the traffic of. Egyptian iconography from Frederick Douglass (in the nineteenth century) to Erykah Badu (in the early twenty-first century), this talk seeks to limn the meanings of an ambient subjectivity as a form of black transnational identification.

Ivy Wilson, Northwestern University

12-2 PM, Friday, April 19, HIB 135