Official Opening

Robert Aguirre, Dean, College of Arts and Letters

Session Panel 1a. Madison Hall 4010, Pan-Africanism, Afrocentrism, and Transnational Ties

Moderator: Madeline Marsh, James Madison University

Kofi Akpabli, Central University, Ghana
“Visitors without Borders?: Concords and Discords among National Communities in the Visitors’ Books”

Brenda Bowman, Independent Scholar
“Unlocking Opportunities: Gender Diversity in Frontier and Emerging Economies”

Katey Castellano, James Madison University
“Provision Grounds Against the Plantation: Robert Wedderburn’s The Axe Laid to Root (1817)”

Emmanuella Amoh, Purdue University
“‘Garvey in Africa’: African Americans and Kwame Nkrumah’s African Personality”

Session Panel 1b. Madison Hall 4026, Decoloniality and Afrofuturism at Akilah: Reclaiming Culture, Language, and Identity
Panel sponsored by the Akilah Institute/Davis College, Rwanda & JMU Working Group on Rwanda
          Moderator: Ariel Jagusztyn, Davis College

Cristi Ford, Akilah Institute and Davis Education
Jeanine L. Williams, University of Maryland Global Campus
Ariel Jagusztyn, Davis College

Session Panel 1c. Madison Hall 2001, Afrolatinidad and Temporalities of Erasure
Panel sponsored by Latin American, Latinx, and Caribbean Studies Minor, James Madison University
          Moderator: Allison Fagan, James Madison University

Kristen McCleary, James Madison University
“Erasing and Distorting Blackness in Argentina:
Representations of Afro-Argentines in Tango, Popular Theater, and Carnival, 1880 to 1920”

Pablo José López Oro, University of Texas at Austin
“Garifuna New Yorkers: Hemispheric Entanglements of Black Indigeneity and AfroLatinidad”

Valnora Leister, James Madison University
“Brazil and Portuguese-Speaking Africa”

Session Panel 1d. Madison Hall 2069, Bridging Difference, Building Understanding: The Power of Faculty Exchange and Partnership
Panel sponsored by the College of Education, James Madison University
          Moderator: Michelle D. Cude, James Madison University

Michelle D. Cude, James Madison University
Florence Kisirkoi, Maasai Mara University, Kenya
Lankeu Reson, Maasai Mara University, Kenya
Augustine Muchiri Kara, Maasai Mara University, Kenya
Lisa Schick, James Madison University

Session Panel 2a. Madison Hall 4026, Race, Gender, and Sexuality

Moderator: David Bohn, James Madison University

Ardyn Tennyson, James Madison University
“Tragic Muses and ‘Fancy Girls’: Challenging 19th Century Narratives of Passivity in Trethewey’s Bellocq’s Ophelia”

Nathan Alexander Moore, University of Texas at Austin
“Past, Present, and Suture: Memory, Possibility, and the Symbolic Landscape of the Black Body in the work of Athi-Patra Ruga”

Ángela Castro, Colorado College
“The Palimpsestic Afro-Panamanian Woman in Melanie Taylor’s Camino a Mariato”

Karen Wallace, Educator and Independent Scholar
“Black Girls Matter”

Session Panel 2b. Madison Hall 2001, Legacies of Colonialism, Slavery, and Racial Injustices
          Moderator: Besi Muhonja, James Madison University

Jamie Phlegar, James Madison University
“Reproductive Injustices of Slavery”

Chavonté Wright, Indiana University, Bloomington
“A Historically Black Space in a Predominantly White Place: Black Interiority & Mental Flourishing”

Bella Vilakazi, University of Johannesburg, South Africa
“A Social Justice Analysis of Feedback”

Ojo Oyeyemi Afolabi, Rhodes University, South Africa
“The ‘Natives’ Entirely Left out in the Cold”: Reflections on Rural Healthcare Service in Colonial Nigeria”

Session Panel 2c. Student Success Center 4049, The Future of Security in the DRC: Challenges and Wider Impacts
Panel sponsored by Latin American, Latinx, and Caribbean Studies Minor, James Madison University
          Moderator: Frances Flannery, James Madison University

Yven Yenda Ilunga, James Madison University
Rodrigue Makelele, Eastern Mennonite University
Mike Brislen, James Madison University
Frances Flannery, James Madison University

Session Panel 2d. Madison Hall 4010, Exploring African American Experiences at the ICI
Panel sponsored by the Institute of Creative Inquiry, James Madison University
          Moderator: Erica Cavanagh, James Madison University

Vanessa Rouillon, James Madison University
“Albert R. Lee, ‘A Man of Substance, One of Illinois’ Finest Traditions’”

Nicole Jenkins, James Madison University
“Songs of Vienna”

Bryana Moore, James Madison University
“JMU Through Living Color”

AAAD Senior Research Experience Presentations

Jessica Carter, “Hungry Like the Wolf: Masculinity and Melancholia in Yasmina Khadra’s Wolf Dreams”
Qyaira Colbert, “Furious Flower Poetry Center: A Beacon of Black Excellence”
Zaria Heyward, “Black Firsts at James Madison University”
Lillie Jacob, “Quareness and Janelle Monáe’s Dirty Computer”
Ryland Jones, “Structure and Format in Tyehimba Jess’ Poetry”
Spencer Law, “Passive Resistance in Massive Resistance: Desegregation Busing in Harrisonburg, VA”
Madalyn Peyton,” A Change Through Time: Activism, Emotion & The Black Lives Matter Movement”
Trey Wilson, “Innovative Strategies: Financial Literacy for Young African American Males”
Zenobia Lee-Nelson, “Ain’t I a Woman, Still: Black Directed Femicide in the United States”

Africana Literatures and Cultures Workshop

Noelle Chaddock, Vice President for Equity and Inclusion, Bates College
“The Politics of Being Offended”
          Moderator: Beth Hinderliter, James Madison University

Cultural Night @ the Golden Pony. 181 Main St

Session Panel 3a. Madison Hall 4010, Black Bodies and Agency in Film
          Moderator: Sofia Samatar, James Madison University

Reg Zehner, Columbus College of Art and Design
“Phantom Geographies: The Spatial Haunting of Black Characters in Film”

John Albrite, James Madison University
“‘I’ll Be Seeing You Real Soon’: The Star Body as Temporal Disruptor in Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave (2013)”

Forkan Ali, University of Sydney, Australia
“Painful Pictures of the Black Body, History and Memory through the novel Beloved, the film Green Book, and #BlackLivesMatter Movement”

Session Panel 3b. Madison Hall 4026, Conflict and Trauma
          Moderator: Melinda Adams, James Madison University

Ellie Vilakazi, Independent Scholar
“Intermediating Politics through Subjectivity in Khwezi: The Remarkable Story of Fezekile Ntukela Kuzwayo by Redi Thlhabi”

Christopher Appiah-Thompson, University of Newcastle, Australia
“Peace, Conflict, and Governance in African Religions, Philosophy and Political Practices”

Christian Fryer-Davis, CUNY
“Powerful Women in Rwanda: Rewriting Genocide Narration from a Female Perspective”

Jesse Bucher, Roanoke College
“Redressing the Past: Critical Histories of Steve Biko’s Death in Detention”

Session Panel 3c. Madison Hall 2001, Comics, Digital Scholarship, and Innovative Methodologies
          Moderator: Howard Carrier, James Madison University

Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, University of Massachusetts-Boston
“The Computational Gwendolyn Brooks & Black Digital Poetics”

Alex Gil, Columbia University
“Un-doubling Voice in Speculative Archives: The Double Recovery of Aimé Césaire’s ‘…et les chiens se taisaient’”​

Brian Flota, James Madison University
“We Should be Proud of Our Black Heritage!” The Radical Intervention of Bertram’s A. Fitzgerald’s Early Black Comic Books”

Kwame Otu, University of Virginia
“Toxic Subjectivities: Racial Capitalism on an E-waste Dump in Neoliberal Ghana”

Session Panel 3d. Madison Hall 4000, Black Women in the Sciences: Life, Leadership, and Innovation
Roundtable discussion sponsored by Sisters in Session
          Moderator: Oris Griffin, James Madison University

Iona Black, James Madison University
Cheryl Talley, Virginia State University
Adrienne Giles, James Madison University
Modjadji Choshi, James Madison University
Hatajai A. Lassiter, James Madison University

Session Panel 3e. Madison Hall 2069, Curating from Within: A Pan-Africanist Pedagogical Approach to University Education
Panel sponsored by the Africa Leadership University, Rwanda
          Moderator: Neil Marrin, James Madison University

Mwata Chisha, African Leadership University, Rwanda
Chara Itoka, African Leadership University, Rwanda
Stephanie Wanga, African Leadership University, Rwanda
Garnett Achieng, African Leadership University, Rwanda
Smangaliso Areal Thembela Mbili, African Leadership University, Rwanda
Gugulethu Violet Dube, African Leadership University, Rwanda
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Featured Speaker

Bethany Nowviskie, Dean of Libraries, James Madison University. “Otherwise(,) an Archive”
          Moderator:  McKinley Melton, Gettysburg College & Furious Flower Poetry Center, James Madison University

Session Panel 4a. Student Success Center 4049, Critical Perspectives on Independence and Development in Africa
          Moderator: Jennifer Coffman, James Madison University

Gnimbin A. Ouattara, Brenau University
“Africa in the Declarations of Independence of America, Liberia, Congo, and Cote d’Ivoire”

Umeme Sababu, University of Edinboro
“Cuba’s Intervention in Southern Africa Liberation Movements: The Odyssey of Angola and Namibia’s Independence”

M.M Fadakinte, University of Lagos, Nigeria
“Africa and the Crisis of Development: Reflections on Colonial Legacies”

Michael Gubser, James Madison University
“Zambia’s ‘Missing Narrative’ of Economic Reform”
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ONI, Oluwafemi Olatunji, Lagos City Polytechnic, Nigeria
“An Indigenous Education Policy as the Panacea for Africa’s Development: the Nigeria Case Study”

Session Panel 4b. Madison Hall 2069, Perspectives on Race, Place, and Space
          Moderator: Steven Reich, James Madison University

Ophera A. Davis, Independent Scholar
“Past and Future: The Memory, Resilience, and Recovery of Mississippi Hurricane Katrina Black Women Survivors”

Blair M. Proctor, SUNY New Paltz
“Race, Place, and Urban Renewal in New Orleans: From Plessy through Katrina”

John C. Finn, Christopher Newport University; Jakira Silas, Asia Farmer, and Dominique Ardis, Christopher Newport University
“Living Apart: Geography of Segregation in the 21st Century”

Paula D. Royster, Independent Scholar
“Decolonizing Visual Cultural Productions of Racial Bias in Cartography”

Session Panel 4c. Madison Hall 4026, Black Geographies: Space, Place, and Power in the African Diaspora
Panel sponsored by the Department of Justice Studies, James Madison University
          Moderator: Case Watkins, James Madison University

Mary Hicks, Amherst College
“Black Cosmopolitan Geographies in the Maritime South Atlantic”

Alex Moulton, Clark University, Middle Tennessee State University
“‘The north of the peaks remaining untouched by ordinary negroes, who have had hitherto a traditional dread of the Maroons.’: The Environmental Effects and Histories of Jamaica’s Maroons.”
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Levi Van Sant, George Mason University
“Conservation Easements and Plantation Geographies in the Coastal US South”
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Case Watkins, James Madison University
“Recognizing and Amplifying Geographies of Resistance in the African Diaspora”

Session Panel 4d. Student Success Center 4047, Inclusive Practices in Faculty Peer-Mentoring Relationships (Roundtable)

Angela Webb, James Madison University
Liz Edwards, James Madison University
Shin Ji Kang, James Madison University

Session Panel 45a. Madison Hall 2069, Meditating the Past/Present and Local/Global
          Moderator: Sharon Cote, James Madison University

Luke Williams, Stanford University
“To Do Jis’ So: Temporal Embodiment in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man”
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Chiara Corazza, University of Bologna, Italy
“Constructing a Black Future: The Dialogue Between the ‘New Negro’ and Gandhian Nonviolence”
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Massa Lemu, Virginia Commonwealth University
“The Malawian Dugout Canoe is ‘Text’”
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Iesha (Denize LeDeatte), Peach Mango Maverick
“Our Voices…Need Another Language”

Session Panel 5b. Madison Hall 4026, Trauma and Healing
          Moderator: David Babcock, James Madison University

Clarence W. Tweedy, University of Mary Washington
“Resistance and Redemption: (Re)memory and Trauma in Chesya Burke’s Let’s Play White”
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Renee Barlow, Tarleton State University
“Redefining Trauma as Communal Legacy in Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad”
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Tracey Wang, University of Virginia
“She and they and the abundant foliage”: Recovering Childhood Play and Queer Ecologies in Mootoo’s Cereus Blooms at Night”

Robert O. Goebel, James Madison University
“Time Healeth All Wounds? Methinks Not”

Session Panel 5c. Student Success Center 4049, Black Women’s Representation
Panel sponsored by the Department of Political Science & the Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program, James Madison University
          Moderator: Melinda Adams, James Madison University

Jamil Scott, Georgetown University
“Is She On the List: Understanding the Role of Women Campaign Funding Groups in State Level Politics”

Kenicia Wright, University of Central Florida
“All Women Impacted Unequally: Social Capital and Minority Female Representation in the US”

Jatia Wrighten, James Madison University
“An Examination of Leadership, Black Women, and State Legislatures”

Kristin Wylie, James Madison University
“The New Marielles? Intersectional Implications of Outrage for Political Ambition” (with Malu Gatto, University College London)

Session Panel 5d. Madison Hall 4000, Book Discussion: Antagonizing White Feminism: Intersectionality’s Critique of Women’s Studies and the Academy
Roundtable sponsored by the School of Art, Design, and Art History,  James Madison University

Moderated and Presented by the Book’s Editors: Noelle Chaddock, Bates College, and Beth Hinderliter,  James Madison University

Keynote Speaker

Nalo Hopkinson, Professor of Creative Writing, University of California, Riverside
“Speculative Fiction and Sankoferation: Re-imagining the Past to Repair the Future”
          Moderator: Sofia Samatar, James Madison University

Session Panel 6a. Madison Hall 2069, Afrofuturisms

Moderator: Sofia Samatar, James Madison University

McKinley E. Melton, Gettysburg College
“Spoken Worlds: Contemporary Poetry, Afrofuturism, and the Creative Impulse”

Christopher Allen Varlack, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
“Hokum and Hack Work of the Purest Vein”:
Inquiries into Black Nationalism and Race Pride in George Schuyler’s Afrofuturist Satire, Black Empire”
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Mollie Godfrey, James Madison University
“Getting Graphic with Kindred: The Neo-Slave Narrative of the Black Lives Matter Movement”
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Torin Dru Alexander, Winston-Salem State University
“Afrofuturism and Africana Religion”
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Session Panel 6b. Madison Hall 2001, The Transnational Geographies of African Literatures in Iberian Languages
          Moderator: Mahan L. Ellison, Bridgewater College

Debra Faszer-McMahon, Seton Hill University
“Feminist Poetics from the Maghreb: Global Migrations and Amazigh Cultural Voices in Spain”
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Mahan L. Ellison, Bridgewater College
“Somewhere Between Africa and Europe: Postcolonial Geographies in Marlow’s Porter /Black Song without Color by César Mba Abogo”

Lizely Lopez, University of North Carolina, Greensboro
“Space and Travel in a Transnational Context: Paloma Loribo’s Momentos fugaces”
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Victoria Ketz, La Salle University
“Añorando la tierra dejada: Imágenes en la poesía de Khédija Gadhoum”

Session Panel 6c. Student Success Center 4046, Diasporic Memory in the United States’ Past and Present
Panel sponsored by the Cohen Center for the Humanities
          Moderator: Corey A. Hickerson, James Madison University

Will Stanley, James Madison University
“Liberty to Slaves: Resistance, Religion, and Bondage in the 1739 Stono Rebellion”
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Alex Brooks, James Madison University
“Under Cover of Lightness: The Antebellum Social Navigation of American Mulattoes”
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Marina Shafik, James Madison University
“Neo-Passing: An Application of Nella Larsen’s Passing to Modern-Day Code Switching”
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Kevin Leaven, James Madison University
“Misfit with Many Masks”

Session Panel 6d. Student Success 4047, Sudan in Transition
Panel sponsored by the Humanitarian Affairs Minor, James Madison University
          Moderator: Tara Parsons, James Madison University

Daniel Beers, James Madison University
“Complexities of a Changing Political Climate”
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Kenique Brown, Amy Powell, and Laura Greene, James Madison University
“Humanitarian Situation in South Sudan”
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Hager Ahmad, Sudanese Community Organization of Harrisonburg
“Sudanese Refugee Resettlement”
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Susannah Hosay, James Madison University
“Documenting the Stories of Local Sudanes

Featured Workshop
Sponsored by James Madison University Libraries
          Moderator: Bethany Nowviskie, James Madison University

Alex Gil, Digital Scholarship Librarian, Columbia University
“Nimble Tents for a Mobilized Humanities, or, Mobilizing Humanities Scholarship and Collectives in Critical Times”

Session Panel 7a. Student Success Center 4042, The African Notebook: Afrofuturistic Elements in College History Courses
          Moderator: Latif A. Tarik, Elizabeth City State University

Latif A. Tarik, Elizabeth City State University
“The African Notebook: Afrofuturistic Elements in College History Courses”
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Clarence Lusane, Howard University
“Tell Me a Story Baba: Black Panther and Wakanda’s Foreign Policy in the Age of Neo-Liberalism”
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Alexis Rhodes, Marquette University
“Time Travel and Black Disposability: Re-examining the ‘Strong Black Woman’ Narrative in the Netflix Film, See You Yesterday”
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Kimberly Smith, Elizabeth City State University
“The Power of the Black Vampire in Octavia Butler’s Fledgling”

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Session Panel 7b. Student Success Center 4043, Gender Norms and Conceptions of Masculinity and Femininity
          Moderator: Courtney Swartzentruber, James Madison University

Abena Kwatemaa Karikari, University of Ghana
“‘Watching the Stomach’: The Experience of Infertility in the Social Media Age”
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Abena Kwatemaa Karikari, University of Ghana, and Akua Bobson
“It is her Womb that is not Working”: A Literary Analysis of Gender Differences in the Approach to Infertility in Africa”
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Antony Mukasa, Chuka University, Kenya
“Post-Colonial Urban Masculinity as a Tragic Mode: Peter Kimani’s Before the Rooster Crows”
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Tessa Crosby, James Madison University
“Fallen from Grace: Glamour and Politics in Post-Independence Zimbabwe”

Session Panel 7c. Student Success Center 4047, The Power in Our Vision: Africana Women in the Arts
Roundtable sponsored by Sisters in Session, James Madison University
          Moderator: Amy Lewis, Michigan State University & James Madison University

Nicole Jenkins, James Madison University
Miracle Oromena Ogbor, James Madison University
Diane Phoenix-Neal, James Madison University
Patrick Oswald, James Madison University
Amy Lewis, Michigan State University & James Madison University

Session Panel 7d. Student Success 4046, Race and Institutional Justice
Panel sponsored by the Department of Justice Studies,  James Madison University
          Moderator: Taimi Castle, James Madison University

Taimi Castle, James Madison University
“‘Cops and the Klan:’ Police Disavowal of Risk and Minimization of Threat from the Far Right”
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Gianluca De Fazio, James Madison University
“‘Lynching as State-Sanctioned Racial Terrorism: Evidence from Virginia’s History of Racial Oppression’”
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Benjamin Meade, James Madison University
“Reflections on Teaching a Prison Scholars Course”

Session Panel 7e. Madison Hall 4000, Highlife & Afrobeat Music Composers Workshop – DC Highlife Stars

Session Panel 8a. Student Success Center 4042, African/African-American Identity in the 21st Century
          Moderator: Benita Dix, James Madison University

Pierre Mbala, James Madison University
Trent Pace, James Madison University
Kyel Towler, James Madison University

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Session Panel 8b. Student Success Center 4043, “Edu-LARP for Change: Engaging Afrofuturistic Speculation Through Life Action Game Play”

Micknaie Arefaine, Independent Scholar

Session Panel 8c. Student Success Center 4046, Preserving the Past and Shaping the Future of Black Poetry with the Furious Flower Poetry Center’s Digital Archive
Panel sponsored by JMU X-Labs, James Madison University
          Moderator: Mollie Godfrey, James Madison University

Mary Beth Cancienne, James Madison University
David Hardy, James Madison University
Kate Morris, James Madison University
Lillie Jacob, James Madison University
Ryland Jones, James Madison University
Spencer Law, James Madison University

Session Panel 8d. Student Success 4047, Conceptualizing Gender Equity, Rehabilitation, Reconciliation, and Modernism through a Study Abroad to Rwanda
Panel sponsored by the Hart School of Hospitality,  James Madison University

Neil Marrin, James Madison University
Lexi Swinimer, James Madison University
Ryan Chesler, James Madison University
Elizabeth DeCorte, James Madison University
Brian Levy, James Madison University

Session Panel 7e. Madison Hall 4000, Highlife & Afrobeat Music Composers Workshop – DC Highlife Stars

DC Highlife Stars, Benefit Concert  Resources to Resources (R2R) @ The Golden Pony, 181 N. Main St

Sponsored by the Office of Access and Inclusion, Center for Civic Engagement, College of Arts & Letters, Latin American, Latinx and Caribbean Studies, Dept. of English, Dept. of Justice Studies, the School of Media Arts and Design, the Humanitarian Student Association, and GIVE Volunteers.
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