Scholarship + Art + Activism = Scholartivism
Scholartivism is my way of naming that I am a scholar, an artist, and an activist, and bring all of these perspectives to my work. To me, the life of the mind is enriched by my art and organizing and vice versa.
I believe in the power of art to move, heal, and unite people.
I’m inspired by those who name pleasure as an important part of our movement work, and believe that beauty and art can connect us to what is pleasurable, what is worth living and thriving for.
Below you’ll see a few samples of my recent scholartivism. What unifies them is the desire to visually connect people, places, ideas, movements, and more with beauty.
Embodied Spiritual-Political Education
One of my main offerings is through the Church of Black Feminist Thought, an embodied spiritual-political education project that I co-founded with Ra Malika Imhotep in 2018. What started with the idea to collaborate on a black feminist theory zine blossomed into an intergenerational group committed to being in rigorous, intimate relationships with the work of black feminist writers and artists. Over the course of a year, we gathered around potluck food, altars, and embodied practice to study and celebrate the works of Octavia Butler, Hortense Spillers, Saidiya Hartman, Toni Morrison, Nina Simone, Ula Y. Taylor, Ntozake Shange, local artist Amara T. Smith, The Beautiful Being Project, Patricia Hill Collins, Audre Lorde, and bell hooks. I provided the visual vessel by drawing portraits of our thinkers and creating visual theory maps (a few samples above) of what we studied at gatherings. This, we compiled into a Black feminist Study Theory Atlas.
Formal Academic Scholarship
Dissertation
In May 2022, I published my dissertation titled, “Embodied Study for Collective Liberation: Everyday Performances of Solidarity” and received my PhD from the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies at UC Berkeley.
My purpose with this project is to talk to and with others like myself with race, class, and/or academic privileges who wish to practice solidarity in the name of collective liberation, exploring how solidarity is an everyday act that is always changing, just like everything around us. Specifically, I interviewed the POOR Magazine Solidarity Family and received guidance from the Poverty Scholars at POOR Magazine in East Oakland to center their scholarship around what solidarity can look like.
I agree with Poverty Scholars that we who materially benefit from White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, and Capitalism are emotionally and spiritually hurt by these very systems. In a time when political, environmental, and cultural polarization have left many feeling hopeless and helpless, my goal is to guide those who have access to wealth, land, and resources to reconnect with our full selves in movement work so that we can support poor, indigenous, POC in their own self-determined movements.
Teaching
at uc berkeley:
• “Embodied Study for Our Collective Liberation” (Spring 2022)
• “In This Beautiful Body Every Day: Embodied Study for Our Collective Liberation” (Fall 2021)
• “Embodied Citation: Black feminist Study and Research as Care” (Fall 2020 and Spring 2021)
• “Performing Race, Class & Space in Oakland, CA” (Spring 2020)
• “Dreaming of Utopia and The Politics of Hopeful Spaces” (Spring 2018)